


Out of Place

by freelancejouster



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hell, Chronic Illness, Curses, Fallen Angels, Healing, Hell is Not Evil AU, Hellhounds, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Injury Recovery, Kissing, M/M, Strangers to Lovers, Wings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-19 04:41:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29620761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freelancejouster/pseuds/freelancejouster
Summary: Johnny's not high-ranking in Hell, he's justold-- a son of a son of a son of the original fallen angels -- so when he gets sent to Earth indefinitely (like, find someone to watch your plants, indefinitely) there's not much he can do but go.He didn't expect injured hellhound Mark to tag along with him.  And he didn't expect what happened next.
Relationships: Mark Lee/Suh Youngho | Johnny
Comments: 6
Kudos: 102





	Out of Place

**Author's Note:**

  * For [speckledsolanaceae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/speckledsolanaceae/gifts).



> This was written for the DonationBin fic event (and will eventually be posted to a collection when that becomes possible)! The guidelines were that we donated a WIP we knew we would never finish, then were given a WIP from another writer in return and given full creative liberty.
> 
> inspired by the prompt given by speckledsolanaceae:
> 
> "A fallen angel is mandated by Hell to rescue and take care of a hellhound no longer able to survive Hell's domain. As the hellhound recovers and regains the powers he lost, these two black sheep discover a companionship in each other they didn't think they'd ever have—and eventually find their final missing piece in the very human, sassy cook down the street who helped them along the way."
> 
> this is that and the doc I was given, and it's not, and i ran out of space for the polyamourous part but I'm sincerely grateful for Anne's massive brain.
> 
> Content Note: these boys are a little monstrous! if you cannot handle fear/horror at all, this may not be the fic for you. there's not a lot, but it's definitely there. also, I tagged for this a little, but there's a description of an injury that may be quesy-making. mind your limits.
> 
> Also also, Donghyuck is just Haechan in this for reasons, please let's not talk about it.
> 
> big thanks to nonelasagna, as always.

There’s a neon buzz in the air as Johnny shleps his way back across the city to his cramped apartment. He’s always enjoyed walking, doesn’t much care that it’s not the most efficient form of travel. The sidewalks are crowded, but they’re always crowded. Hell is full and has been for a long time.

It figured that the dude who popularized neon signs would end up in Hell and overrun the place — that sort of thing always seemed to happen. Couldn’t go a block without a vape shop or a McDonald’s or a combination vape shop/McDonald’s and its uniquely nauseating greasy meat and tobacco smell. Made the place fucking miserable, especially the, you know, bad parts of it.

Johnny’s not from the bad parts of Hell, as much as that can be said. There’s certainly some less-bad parts, especially once you get out of the places that are meant to be, you know. Torturous. And Lucifer and the rest of the true leader-sort of people had never minded a little unfair treatment, a few greased palms. Especially lately — maybe it was an oxymoron, but while there could have been worse leadership of the place, Johnny would be hard pressed to imagine what that might look like.

Maybe that was the point.

A bell jingled overhead — and it finds it oddly cheery — as he entered the corner store, carefully holding the door open for a trio exiting. He queued carefully throughout the store, trying to make himself as unobtrusive as possible. He grabbed the little prepackaged thing of food and gave the pixie blowing enormous bubble gum bubbles at the cash register a half-smile. He was in here a lot. It wasn’t _not_ embarrassing.

Johnny’s been around a long time — it’s not the first time he’s thought about it — the unequal parts of Hell. He knows inequality has really swallowed up Earth in the last few decades, and he can’t help but think that one of the worlds had to have gotten the idea from the other. It wasn’t so often that their trends mirrored each other. He’d been around long enough to notice that, too; that this was different. A little bit wrong.

He’d just come from a meeting in Taeyong’s offices. They were the strangest place and continued to surprise him each time he was invited — one of the only spaces he’d been lately with any _space_ to speak of. Where last time had been sleek steel columns and dark woods, were small (nearly cozy) offices in a sort of fetid green. The whole structure felt almost immaterial, with how often it changed. As though it couldn’t look one way for too long. Or maybe it was just that that was how Taeyong was. His hair had been sort of mullet-y and pastel pink this time around; Johnny figured it might be a little bit different next time too.

Taeyong had looked tired. He always sort of looked tired — all of them with any sort of substantial role to play always sort of looked tired, any management responsibilities especially, but this had been more than usual. Those reddish bags beneath each eye were bruised purple this time around, his face gaunter than it had been when Johnny had last seen him. Johnny was just — well, old, rather than particularly high ranking in Hell’s government, but even he’d been feeling it lately. He was sure he looked worse than last time Taeyong had seen him, too.

The meeting had been brief. Brief and grim. The gist was that Johnny was to return back to Earth as soon as possible — and it was going to be a while; though there wasn’t a clear time frame, his coworker Jaehyun was going to take over his most pressing Hell-set assignments and his assistant Haechan was going to take over the rest of them.

No assignments left in Hell was a bad sign on it’s own, but as Johnny had never been one for pets, Taeyong had also told him to find someone to water his plants and to expense whatever supplements he needed — Johnny’s kind always did a little better in Hell than on Earth. If he needed supplements, though … well, that was as much of a message as anything else.

He’d picked at the seam of the worn leather chair he’d been sat in in his worry, just a little bit of stuffing coming through the barest parts of it, then.

The thought now had him grabbing a candy bar off the shelves as well. Something with peanut butter. There was only about a thirty percent chance of it being decent rather than overly oily or chalky, but it was a chance he was desperate enough to take.

The pixie raised her eyebrows at him, but didn’t say anything. Just snapped her gum and blew another bubble as the bell overhead cued his exit.

There was less neon over this way, but Johnny still felt like he heard that same buzz as he rounded the corner, carefully meandered around people and creatures alike, and then started up the stairs to his apartment. There are no elevators down here, not in most places. There were magic-adjacent, teleporting-adjacent sort of apparatuses for anyone who might _need_ that sort of thing (and anyone who might fake that sort of need), but the rest of them had to hoof it. It’s its own sort of punishment, Johnny supposed, even though he wasn’t here for that sort of thing specifically.

No, Johnny had been born here. The real deal. A son of a son of a son of the original fallen angels, though he wasn’t the sort of person who took any kind of pride in that. While he liked humans fine, he didn’t think he’d have left heaven for them.

He shoved his bangs off his face and fought for a moment with the key to his door; his building was old and the locks were effective in that they never wanted to open. There were seven messages from Haechan hanging from the tether next to his fridge and as toed his shoes off by the front door, an eighth dropped through the ceiling to rest above the others with the faint noise of rustling paper.

Not a record by any means where Haechan was concerned, but certainly more than — well, a normal assistant might leave, Johnny noticed with a wry smile.

He flicked the bottom one to get it to unfold and play and started fishing for some chopsticks, prepackaged food well and truly cold. Haechan and Johnny had worked together for almost two years now, but the first message was always a little bit stuttered and strange. _Hey! Uh, Mr. S- Johnny. Sir,_ Haechan’s voice came, always half a phrase away from a laugh, always a little bit unsure. _Taeyong’s assistant sent over an itinerary for your first week up. He wouldn’t tell me how long you’ll be, but I don’t know if that’s just that he doesn’t know or that it’s, like, subject to change. I’m forwarding the itinerary now. Call me when you get back from Mr. L- Taeyong’s office._

Johnny pops the lid off of his food and scribbles “check itinerary” on his To Do List.

The next one starts without any prompting, unfolding as the first one had — _I heard from Jaemin that while you’re definitely on an assignment,_ there were some swallowing noises, like Haechan had started the message mid-way through downing the impressive amount of coffee he all but mainlined most days, _that you might be able to pick from a couple different locations. I don’t have the list yet, but I’ll send it over when I get it._

Johnny scribbles “choose location from list” on his To Do List before picking his chopsticks back up. There are longer messages in the stack and one that’s only about half a sentence long, as though Haechan forgot he was recording halfway through the message and got distracted by something — possibly Jaemin, if previous messages were anything to go by. The food is not the worst he’s had, despite it being pretty cold. The candy bar is only a little oilier than it should be. Not bad by Hell-fare. Not bad at all.

—

Three days of planning culminated in Johnny going over the basic details of the travel process for an Earth trip for Haechan, as he furtively nodded through each step.

He had done this before, but his assistant was always overly nervous at the radio silence there would be until Johnny got to his Earth-residence and generated the necessary connection.

The steps were: take a train to the gate, walk through the gate, take a short walk to the portal, portal to Earth, take a long walk to his Earth-residence. He could get a car or maybe take public transportation topside, but he had always liked getting the feel of a place the first day by walking through it and the couple pieces of luggage he was bringing with were being delivered directly — you could do that sort of thing with most things, but anything with a soul (corrupted or otherwise), had to go through the gate.

Johnny was not sure if it was something that _had_ to happen, or something that used to have to happen and was part of those “traditional values” the various high-ranking people were so fond of citing. The gate was sort of pretty, in a terrible, menacing way, so Johnny wasn’t sure he minded either way.

The train-ride there was more or less uneventful — it was cramped and overcrowded, and the whole place smelled like onions with a tang of old sweat, but it wasn’t any worse than it usually was, and only one person tripped over Johnny’s feet as he clung carefully to a handle as near the middle of the car as he could get.

The walk to the gate was different — though that’s where nearly all the people who had been on the train with Johnny were going as well, there was something almost provincial about this little sliver of the place — actual room to spread out, no need to elbow your way past anyone, no need to press to the edges of a thing, grime coating your skin. Pomegranate trees grew in careful lines just to the East, leafy boughs heavy with fruit — the Asphodel Fields and Hades’s Palace somewhere off beyond them.

And before him were the gates. Looming, as only things both ancient and powerful can. From Hell’s gates, dark meadows bloomed, the grasses feathery like flames, but shadowed and interesting — never quite the same between glances. Unlike the soot and smoke of the city, the grassy field before the gates smelled like wet earth but deeper, starving and wild.

There’s something that feels almost sacred about the place — even as Johnny spots the long lines of people snaking out past the gate. People who hadn’t been in yet, waiting to be judged and then placed. He’d heard of people who had been passed between gates dozens of times — no place for them to fit, too malicious for Heaven, too pure for Hell.

Eventually they’d come to rest here; Hell was the place where people who didn’t belong ended up. But it might take a while — decades, maybe longer. Hell was _full_. Full to bursting. The open spaces were dwindling down to nothing, making way for cramped housing structures, almost as though the place was being compressed.

While Johnny also had to wait in line, his line is not nearly as long, and moved at a casual clip. Most of them had been through here at least once — residents going somewhere else or visitors returning to where they’d come from. They all toed off their shoes to pad their way through; all did that weird little half-bow everyone did to the demons on duty with their red faces and curled horns.

“Purpose?” one asked him, voice deep to gravelly, flame-dark eyes sweeping down and then back up Johnny’s body.

“Work,” Johnny said, feet a little bit cold in the long grass. He held his ID up. Taeyong (or more likely, one of his various assistants) would have authorized him, however that was done.

The demon squinted nearly imperceptibly, reading whatever information he needed from it and glanced back at Johnny’s face before nodding and waving him past. And just like that, he was moving forward again, stopping to shove his feet into his shoes.

He needed to find a portal that feels right. None of them had labels and the process had more to do with a gut feeling than anything in particular. As long as you knew roughly where you were going, you should get roughly where you’re going — there’s magic involved, Johnny kned. Something dark and old and a little strange, and a few trips ago Taeyong had stopped to talk to one of the cloaked figures drifting around the space and they’d ended up literally at the back door to the place they’d needed to go. The closest Johnny had gotten by himself was about three blocks away — but he wasn’t sure that he had the nerve to bother the creatures himself. He didn’t mind a walk anyway.

The cloaked figures, with their scent of decay and trailing dark auras, were not the only things that populate this space — between the gate and portals. There were ferrymen, with their gold teeth and ageless faces; some benevolent spirits, old and faded so severely that the occasional visitor would stumble into them; and packs of sad little hellhounds — usually rejects from Hades’s litters, with cloudy eyes or crooked teeth or slightly odd gaits. Occasionally there would be one who looked a little bit injured rather than fundamentally flawed — a scarred eye or a small wound.

It — it was a funny thing, Johnny thought, as he chose his portal. He had stepped towards it and not noticed the hellhound with a sprained paw loping towards him. Had closed his eyes and let the gentle fizzling space overtake him. He would have figured that it would have felt _different_ , fundamentally, to bring something with him.

But it hadn’t, not noticeably anyway, felt any different. So when he opened his eyes to the far-colder-than-Hell-had-been Wisconsin winter morning sun, he was surprised to find the hellhound at his side.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” he asked it. He wasn’t sure if hellhounds could talk, especially on Earth; he’d always been sort of a cat person, but also more of a too forgetful to take care of anyone but himself sort of person. Not that he was sure that hellhounds were like dogs, either. “You have to go back.”

The thing made a noise that might have been confusion. It almost looked like a dog; almost. If a dog were terrible to look at. Its bones pressed against its skin, its silver-blue pelt mottled and patchy — but its eyes watered such a living, earnest brown.

Johnny glanced behind himself — the door he’d come out of was just some dingy shop’s storeroom again. No portal to send the thing back through. No place for it to go at all.

He frowned, annoyed. If he were a certain sort of demon he’d probably leave the thing here or even shove into the building so it couldn’t follow him, but he —

The hellhound looked at him with an expression that might have been worry or might just have been sort of vacant. He wasn’t sure that the thing _could_ have inconvenienced him on purpose.

Johnny sighed in resignation — he could bring the thing to his Earth-residence and schedule a portal back for it once his connection had generated. It shouldn’t even be an inconvenience for him, except Johnny had sort of been looking forward to exploring the city he’d portaled into.

“Come on, then,” he told it, jerking his head for it to follow him.

He almost turned to start off on his walk — before he heard it make another little noise. It was a little pathetic, sort of a whimpering noise, and it was then that Johnny saw the careful way it held its back left paw purposefully above the ground. Too injured to put weight on it.

Fuck.

—

The walk was long and Johnny always got the fucking hiccups when he came back from Hell. Between that and the nearly dog-shaped thing slung over his shoulder, bony and strange, he was attracting plenty of attention.

Too much attention.

A pair of students looked at him, and whispered to each other, eyes roving over him — at what must have looked to them like a twenty-something man carrying an injured dog. He appraised in the strangest way and didn’t care for it.

He smiled at them with a few too many teeth and was glad when they quickly turned away from him — afraid they’d stuck their opinions somewhere they shouldn’t have and were about to suffer for it.

But it was Johnny that suffered. The weather was cold, but there was sweat plastering his bangs to his forehead and dripping down his back by the time he reached his Earth-residence.

It was one of 5 or so apartments carved into a Victorian sort of house a few blocks away from the center of the city. He wasn’t sure if someone from his company owned the whole building or just the apartment, or if they paid some kind of monthly rent on it, and frankly he couldn’t give a shit.

The hellhound’s stench seemed to be sinking into his pores by the time he set it down unceremoniously on the couch — even taking a little bit of satisfaction from the disgruntled noise it makes. It didn’t smell _bad_ , but there was something distinctly burnt about it.

“Fucking stay put,” Johnny told it without really looking at it, pushing his sweaty bangs off his forehead. He was over this — over it.

He did a quick sweep of the space. The apartment was fine, just enough character for the little space to not be sad, and stocked with a selection of things in preparation for his arrival — things Haechan had sent to someone’s assistant well above them, so Johnny would get the sort of shampoo he liked and the fridge would have those flavored green tea drinks that were just about the only Earth drink he could stomach. He tapped the connection next to the computer set up at the little desk jammed between the kitchen and the living area — a weird little box that looked somewhere between a child’s drawing of a computer and something very, very old and unsettling.

There was a laptop right next to, that he’ll use for most of his reports and other work, and a tether for messages dangling through the ceiling, but the connection was old school. Why fix what isn’t broken? Why disturb something like _that_ needlessly.

He downed a can of the green tea, letting it settle his stomach and ease his hiccups, before climbing into the shower to get some of the sweat off of himself. He didn’t think much of slinging a towel around his waist and padding back to the living room when he was done, a hand toweling at his hair, to check and see if the connection had generated. Haechan had seen him with his shirt off before — and had made a big enough deal about it that a repeat event would probably have been a treat.

The connection was as still as it had been — looming, as much as anything that was about a foot in any direction can loom, and as still as the grave. Nothing yet.

The time it took was a little different each time — it had something to do with the coordinates of the location measured against the magnetic field of Earth and the time of day. Taeyong had once had an assistant, maybe the one before the one before the one he had now, who had had a knack for estimating. Johnny was fine to just wait.

He moved to get up and wander into the bedroom — but a noise to his left startled him. He’d sort of forgotten that the hellhound was there at all, but looking at him now he seemed — more disturbing than he had been, certainly. For whatever reason, the thing was staring at him, almost without blinking, almost without breathing.

“What?” Johnny asked it.

It had the good sense to look vaguely embarrassed, ducking its head and rubbing its paw down its nose a few times.

Johnny wasn’t sure that that wasn’t _more_ worrying, frankly, than that the thing might be sort of stupid and mindless. If it had an _awareness_ , well.

He glanced down at himself and grimaced. Maybe he should’ve covered up a bit more — he didn’t know very much about this thing at all, other than that it was from Hell and had come with him. Heavens, it could be spying on him, reporting back to someone, even. It wasn’t that Johnny’s work was _particularly_ high profile, but stranger things had happened. Especially in recent years. He pulled his towel more securely around his waist.

“Right,” he said — not sure why he was talking to it at all. It had been _staring_. It — Johnny certainly felt like he _should_ be feeling indifference about it, tried to tell himself that it was just a sad little creature he needed to return to its home, but it — 

He retreated to the bedroom to sift through his belongings, feeling grimy despite the shower he’d had. He tried to tell himself that he had never really been one for being observed and that it wasn’t the hellhound, specifically, making him feel strange.

Because that would be — well, strange. Right?

He wasn’t sure what sort of person, human or otherwise, was the one who frequently unpacked for him, but he knew it was the same one every time because his things were always arranged much more oddly than he’d prefer. He didn’t _need_ the bottom drawer of the dresser to be full of his shoes, and he didn’t need every single piece of underwear to be folded, either. He’d be staying awhile, so it could wait to be fixed, he guessed, but it still —

It disturbed him just a little.

He pulled on a pair of dark green khakis and the warmer of the sweaters he’d brought. When he’d been shuffled towards Wisconsin, he knew it would be cold — most of Earth was colder than Hell at least some of the time — but he hadn’t _really_ been prepared, especially since the residence was old and drafty. Johnny had been born in Hell; he’d never really gotten the opportunity to get the hang of cold. If nothing else, he’d need to put extra sweaters on his expense report, and maybe figure out how to fiddle with the thermostat.

A sort of crinkling noise happened in the main room. And then another. And then three more in quick succession.

Messages. Probably from Haechan. Idiot.

He pulled a sock on, but just as he was about to put the other on, there was a scrabbling sound like claws on an unfamiliar surface, and then the hellhound was darting through the bedroom door. If it weren’t terrifying, it might have been comical, legs powerful and scraping across the floor for purchase, digging deep rends in the floor — lips pulled back in a terrible grimace, showing teeth nearly as long as Johnny’s fingers.

Johnny scrambled back from where he’d been, but it ripped through the room, from one side to the other faster than he could track its movement. There was no getting away from it. Being a fallen angel wouldn’t protect him; nothing would. He’d been privy, as all of Hell’s children were, to stories of Hades’s hounds — how they tracked and tore and there’d be nothing left of you except for a stain where you’d been standing.

He clutched his chest — afraid.

Afraid.

Afraid — until he noticed that it wasn’t coming at him. Not anymore. It had fled to the far side of the room and there was panic in the thing’s eyes, wild and feral. And it was shaking just a little bit.

“What —?” he started to ask it, glancing from it to the doorway and back. His stomach sank; was there something out there? Did he —

The noise came again, somewhere between a crinkle and a rustling sound of paper. Another message.

Johnny almost laughed at the mundanity of it. Of getting a one last message. Of dying with one sock on. And then the hellhound yelped, shrinking itself back against the wall — fear pooling in its eyes, wild and deep.

And then it dawned on Johnny. All at once, like he’d been drenched in cold water.

The hellhound was afraid of the messaging system.

All the adrenaline that had jumped into his limbs left him all at once, and he flopped back onto the bed.

“Fuck,” he said quietly. He could use a nap — this thing was going to kill him. “It’s just the messages,” he told it without looking up. “They’re probably all from my assistant.”

He supposed it wasn’t — surprising that the thing had never encountered the messaging system. It was really only used in government work anymore, and had only really been popular elsewhere for a half decade or so about fifty years ago. He supposed the hellhound was younger than that.

“You’re going to have to get used to it,” he told the hellhound. “Because even if you get out of here today, I’m sure there will be more.” Fuck. He took a deep breath, trying to will any energy back into his limbs.

He sure hoped it got out of here today. For both of their sakes.

—

After recuperating sufficiently and coaxing the hellhound out of the bedroom with a package of shredded chicken and some water, Johnny sat down to sift through the messages.

The hellhound flinched as each one opened, but otherwise didn’t react. Johnny laughed lightly at how overdramatic he’d been. For as terrifying as it was at any given moment it was still just a _creature_.

He watched it snuffle at the food out of the corner of his eye, while Haechan’s voice, equal parts enthusiastic and uncertain, read to him off the page.

There was only so much that could have happened in the something like six hours since Johnny had last been in the office, but he was updated on each aspect of it just in case. Johnny learned that Jaemin was sick with something he’d picked up from someone who’d just gotten to Hell, and then received no less than three messages about it where Haechan’s voice became increasingly alarmed.

The hellhound looked up as the last one closed with a crinkling sound, concern on its features. Both it and Johnny braced for even more noise from the next one, but it was informational for a change of pace — giving him an overview of the metrics attached to the results of a project Johnny had given him a few days ago, and then a solid thirty seconds of fabric noises and general office chatter as Haechan forgot that he’d been taking a message.

Johnny sighed and resynced his laptop to the connection, before video calling Haechan. He’d probably left the office by now — it was early evening in Wisconsin where Johnny was, the sun just starting to set in the faded pinks and purples of winter, but time moved a little faster in Hell and also they were a couple hours ahead at the moment, so it was probably eight or nine there?

He pressed his lips together as the screen made a ringing noise. He figured his odds were fifty/fifty that Haechan would answer on the first try — eighty/twenty that he’d answer at all after that. Not terrible odds; while he was many other things, Johnny was also lucky to have an assistant like him.

Haechan missed the call, but immediately called back. Johnny squinted at the shape of the screen — he must have answered on his phone. It swung in one direction and then the other, before coming to rest on a table. It fell backwards as whatever had been propping it up slid back and Johnny was made to endure the picture moving violently and also what looked like what must have been Haechan’s armpit.

Johnny looked away, closing his eyes for a moment. His day had been — too long, probably. Maybe he should have waited to call until Haechan was in the office. He moved his head from one side to the other, stretching out the muscles in his neck. He wished he’d taken a little extra time in the shower — he could use something relaxing.

He opened his eyes to see that the Hellhound had finished the chicken it had been given and had crawled back up onto the couch. It looked maybe like it was asleep or nearly there, limbs tucked in tightly to its body.

It was almost cute. Almost.

“Hey Boss!” Haechan said brightly. Johnny looked back at the screen to see his assistant almost perfectly framed. Practice, more than talent, Johnny figured. “Made it alright?”

“Uh,” Johnny said. “More or less.” He paused and ran a hand down his face. How to phrase this. “The journey was fine. I got your messages just now — also, before I forget, I know you all are close, but stay away from Jaemin for a while, yeah? He shouldn’t be coming into work with whatever he has anyway, but I’m going to talk to his boss just in case.”

“Okay Boss,” Haechan said with a nod. His hair was out of the carefully formal look he often wore to the office. He was still in a button down, but his tie was missing. He was sitting on the floor in front of a couch Johnny recognized from the two times he’d been to Haechan’s apartment. “What’s the less part, then?”

“Less?” Johnny asked, pushing his bangs off his forehead.

“You said that you made it more or less alright,” Haechan said with a grin. “If the journey was fine, what’s the less? Why are you calling?”

Johnny smiled — of course. There was a reason he was a good assistant. “I’m going to need for you to arrange a portal, or get Taeyong or his contacts to arrange one, probably.”

“Oh?” Haechan asked, eyebrows raising. “Did you forget something, I can just —”

“No,” Johnny cut him off, shaking his head. “No, I didn’t forget anything. It’s just that something came with me when I portaled in and I need to send it back.”

He picked up the laptop as Haechan said _something?_ and turned it to be focused on the couch and the sleeping hellhound.

Haechan let out a low whistle.

“Where the fuck did you find that?”

“There were a whole pack of the rejected ones milling about by the portals — I’m not even sure if it came with me on purpose or if it was just sort of close by when I went through.” Johnny paused to frown and watch it sleep on the screen. “Its paw is hurt, I had to carry it all the way across town. I don’t think I can watch it effectively long term.”

“No?” Haechan asked. He was tapping something onto a laptop he’d pulled from off screen already, probably figuring out if he had enough credentials to schedule a portal himself.

“No, I’ve never really been a pet sort of person.” If he could call a hellhound a pet. It wasn’t even _really_ an animal. “I get too distracted by other stuff.” He wasn’t very good at taking care of people either, but he didn’t feel the need to add that — Haechan probably already knew that, if he was being honest.

Haechan made a face at him before looking back at the screen of his laptop and resuming his typing. “I think I probably have to go through Taeyong’s team, unless you want me impersonating you or something.”

Johnny shook his head. “Nah, I don’t know my credentials anyway anymore. Haven’t had to pay attention to that sort of thing for a few decades.” Not since he got his first assistant — he was frankly abysmal at anything paperwork-heavy that wasn’t directly connected to his field-work ever since. It had driven the assistant before the assistant before Haechan a little nuts and she’d quit in a huff about six months in — but Johnny figured that was as much the job as any of the projects or scheduling things, keeping track of the more mindless stuff so he didn’t have to.

Haechan seemed to get that, because he nodded, squinting a little at the screen as he tried to think which of Taeyong’s assistants might still be online. Taeyong wasn’t known for his friendly hours.

“I’ll message Jisung and maybe Renjun and will let you know if I hear anything,” Haechan told him. “And I can start looking for if there are any portals scheduled for this evening yet, I mean — I don’t think they close really, right?”

“They’re pretty slow in the morning proper. That four AM to eleven timeslot. Everyone traveling for business is already back or is trying to get a little work in before they leave, everyone traveling for pleasure isn’t awake yet.”

“So we should have some time yet,” Haechan said with a nod. Johnny watched as he clicked around a little, focused expression on his face. He always looked so much younger than he usually did when he was out of his regular work attire — on the shitty camera of the screen in his rumpled button down, Johnny thought he might have mistaken him for a college student. He wasn’t like Johnny — wasn’t from Hell proper. Johnny’d never thought to ask how he got there.

“Probably.”

There was a lull in the conversation — Johnny got up to get another can of the tea. Haechan kept searching to see what he could dig up. They sat together in comfortable silence, Johnny tired and half-zoned out until Haechan said, “Oh, Jisung’s online still — _what the fuck_?!”

Johnny sat up, wondering what was wrong.

Haechan just pointed at the screen. Johnny wondered if there was something wrong with his face, or — but then he saw it, and scrambled forwards, away from it, the — 

Well, the very much asleep naked guy right where the hellhound had been.

—

Johnny had ended the videocall with Haechan after several exchanged _what the fuck_ s, Johnny telling him to wait on following up with Jisung until he got back to him, and then looking furtively around for a blanket or _something_ to cover what had once been the hellhound on his couch.

At a most generous reading, Johnny probably wouldn’t have been comfortable being woken while completely nude by someone he’d just met — but Johnny knew the blanket was as much for his own discomfort as the creature’s.

Johnny found a stack of blankets in the closet of the bedroom and pulled the plush-looking yellow one off the top to throw over the thing. It — it looked like a young man, but Johnny wasn’t sure that that _made_ it a man.

As he walked back from the bedroom, he wracked his brain for anything he remembered about hellhounds — were they supposed to shapeshift? Should he have seen this coming as soon as the thing came through the portal with him?

He mentally kicked himself for all the times he’d blatantly ignored his last serious ex-girlfriend’s rambling on the many Greek components of the Hell system. He owed her an apology. Probably for many things, but that was beside the point.

Johnny took a deep breath and threw the blanket over as much of the thing as he could, careful to leave its face uncovered for _I wasn’t trying to smother you_ reasons.

The thing startled awake with something that might have been a yelp, instinctively clutching the blanket to its chest, and scrambling backwards into the couch as though it could burrow into the cheap fabric.

Johnny watched as his eyes flitted from side to side, searching for anything that might have been dangerous, before landing on Johnny’s face with a small amount of recognition. Johnny, to his credit, tried to make himself a little bit smaller — no need to give the thing another reason to be scared of him.

It looked at Johnny’s face for a long moment, then around the room, and then down at itself. “I shifted,” it said eventually, voice cracking a little. Out of practice, maybe.

Johnny nodded. He wasn’t sure to say, but eventually landed on, “Do you want some water?”

It nodded. It looked a little stunned, thin lips pulled into a tight little frown. It looked just as rough in its person-form as it had as a creature — where before its fur had been sort of thin and matted, now it was covered in a general layer of grime, left leg tucked gingerly behind it, as though to shield the injured limb from anything else that might attack it.

Johnny wondered a little bit how it had come to be like that — if something had done that to it or if it had always been like that, but didn’t say anything when he handed it the cup of water.

They were both quiet for a moment, but where the quiet with Haechan was easy and familiar, this was — well, bad. Much worse. It was hard to tell if the thing was just disoriented, or if it was afraid. Johnny wasn’t sure how much he could read into a shifted hellhound — if that was even what the thing was.

It sipped its water. Johnny waited impatiently until it felt like he could ask it.

“Do — are you supposed to shift?”

It nodded. “Most hellhounds can shift,” it explained, looking down into the cup he’d been given. “We don’t usually — do it in front of people. At least, not people we don’t know very well.”

“I’m sorry,” Johnny said. He hadn’t done anything — he didn’t think — to make the thing shift, but he — well, it felt like the right thing to say. He wasn’t so far saturated in the general Hellish attitude that he didn’t feel a little bad for the thing.

It shook its head. “No, I — I’m sorry, I’m sure you weren’t expecting that,” it said with a little huff that might have been a laugh. It looked up from the cup to look at Johnny’s face and then away again before tugging the blanket more securely around itself.

Johnny frowned, not sure what to say, but with several things to ask. He settled on, “Did you try to come with me through the portal?” It nodded. “Why?”

It made a face, almost _well, what can you do_ , though maybe just hiding embarrassment or something else. “You seemed not specifically unkind and — that place, near the portals, it’s just — it’s this nothing space, nearly as bad as limbo for you if you stay there long term and it can be so hard to get out of without a _destination_ , so I just — you know. Picked one.”

“Picked one,” Johnny repeated. The thing nodded. “Don’t you need a ticket?”

It shook its head. “Whatever hellhounds are, we don’t have souls.” No tickets necessary.

“Oh,” Johnny said. He’d always sort of figured that anything more alive than grass had a soul. It — it was unsettling to learn that that wasn’t the case and that the thing sitting on his couch was _soulless_. He shivered slightly, and the thing sat very still. Did nothing to ease the news. That was —

His stomach churned a little. He was glad he hadn’t had any Earth-food yet; he had a sinking feeling that he might have lost it.

“You —” Johnny started, before thinking better of continuing to pursue the subject. He was better off not knowing, or rather, doing some research on his own — far away from this thing. “What should I call you?” he asked instead.

It grinned, like it knew as well as he did the thing he’d avoided asking about, teeth nearly as sharp and as long as they’d been when it looked almost like a dog. “Mark,” it said.

“Okay,” Johnny said. “Mark. I’m Johnny.”

“I know,” it said. “I heard you tell it to the boy on the screen. He’s — he’s in Hell, still, isn’t he?”

Johnny nodded. He — he was about to talk about the length of his own stay out of Hell and about the process they could go through to send Mark back but there was — there was something on Mark’s face. Something that was hard to describe, like — like there was something _else_ inside of him, wild and monstrous and roiling beneath the surface.

Johnny took one careful step backwards, heart beating a little faster.

“Are you cold?” he asked it with a gesture at the bare top half of it, to change the subject. He could — he could wait until they knew how to talk to one another better to bring up sending him back. Or he could — he could plan it away from him somehow and surprise him with it or trick him into going back or something.

He distinctly did _not_ want to talk about it right now.

“I’m naked,” it said with a little frown.

“Yes, I —,” Johnny started, “Let me get you something. You — do you need me to help you to the bathroom or anything?” He did not want to touch it. “You should really — “

“I can manage,” it said, shaking its head. It made that face again. “I stink, huh?”

“I think you’d be more comfortable clean,” Johnny said, shrugging one shoulder.

It nodded and got to its feet, blanket carefully wrapped around itself. It looked steady enough, though when it started to walk it looked rather awkward and not just a little painful. Parts of Johnny wondered if he shouldn’t help it, but it — it had said it didn’t want help.

Instead, Johnny padded off to the bedroom to find something for it to wear.

—

The hellhound (he, Johnny had learned he liked in a sort of awkward exchange as Johnny left him the clothing) looked very different with half-damp hair, sort of small and unassuming in Johnny’s borrowed sweatshirt. Maybe Johnny should have dug him up something smaller — but he’d grabbed the first thing he saw that might keep him warm in the drafty apartment and left it at that.

His gaunt face looked even sharper clean than it had been dirty, but the oversized fabric swallowed his sharp shoulders and unsettling demeanor and coated it instead in a sort of unassuming meekness.

Maybe Mark was just tired — or maybe most things found it difficult to be menacing with sweater cuffs hanging over their hands. Or maybe he hadn’t meant to be menacing at all and it had just _happened_.

Johnny wasn’t sure if that was better or worse than if he’d done it on purpose.

Mark stayed on the couch while Johnny puttered around the kitchen, fixing himself something to eat. It was scarcely evening here, but it had to be nearing ten or so in Hell, and Johnny was approaching ravenous. Mark had told him that he ate mostly meat, so Johnny made triple what he’d usually make for meat, and a little extra of the carbs and vegetables, and called that good. He wasn’t making anything special, just throwing staples together.

And after the food was finished and he carefully had _not_ watched Mark and all of his long sharp teeth rip into the food he’d been given, Johnny carefully excused himself to the bedroom to lay down — grateful for the lock that was always included on Earth-residence bedrooms for Hell business travel.

—

Johnny checked his messages (three from Haechan) and left the apartment before the hellhound on his couch had stirred at all.

People of Hell didn’t usually have nightmares, Johnny was pretty sure. They were the things _of_ nightmares for the most part. But Johnny had certainly slept fitfully and the dreams that Johnny had had of Mark’s soulless eyes and sharp sharp teeth had not been an altogether pleasant experience, to say the least.

He was grateful to have left the apartment, even if the air was chilly and the sky was only just starting to fade into a lighter gray.

The city was not large, and though he imagined it might have been pretty when things were lush and green — the parts of it that were cultivated to be lush and green — it was decidedly not pretty with things as they were, in various shades of dirty white and dark gray, slush and salt marring most horizontal surfaces, little lights strung between building a sad little testament to how obviously things needed cheering.

He picked a coffee up from a sad little store on the edge of the downtown area, all the coverings cheap imitations of what they were meant to be channeling — laminate wood sad and obvious, fake plants very fake indeed. Johnny frowned at the streaks of black someone had left from cleaning up the slush, dirt splattering the entire floor save for the ugly mats meant to mitigate the issue.

Earth was gross. The coffee he’d gotten was burnt and felt sort of weird and oily on his tongue, as though it were somehow both over and under-sweetened. Maybe Hell wasn’t so bad after all.

The directions he’d gotten were pretty vague, but he had a feeling that might change eventually. They often had him go to Earth ahead of something larger — have him sow a little discord before the main event, if there was a main event to be had — trying to pull the strings or weight the scales or whatever other analogy you might want to use to describe purposeful light manipulation.

So that’s what Johnny did — he walked around the blocks he’d chosen, weaving in amongst the people as though he were one of them. He’d position himself in front of people and then pull a face when he got run into, that _what the fuck is wrong with you_ face. He’d wander into clothing stores and grimace at people trying on clothing, playing a good-natured stranger, pretending to be doing it conspiratorially and watched their faces fall. He’d jostle people into each other and watch them drop things.

His targets were easy to choose — anyone who looked a little overly self-entitled, who looked like they might have any kind of superiority about them. These were the sort of people he felt best about making their lives a little worse.

He fished the wallet out of the purse of a woman berating the waiter in a restaurant, paid her bill for her, and then treated himself to lunch with the rest of the cash in her wallet a block over, before turning her wallet in at a sex shop three blocks down. _I found it in the fitting room_ , he said to the cashier with a little shrug as he bought a pair of socks that said each said “fuck you” on the ankle. _No, I don’t think it was stolen, I saw the woman on the license picture in there earlier, trying on pegging harnesses._

It was easy. He was good at it. And it made the world a little bit worse for the worst sort of people — which was his job, anyway, in a broader sort of sense than anyone really cared to detail most of the time.

It took up time, but he had plenty of it — he figured with a grim little frown — he was on Earth with no return date after all. On Earth with a hellhound. A hellhound he needed to send back.

He pressed his lips together, half-looking at his reflection in the store he was debating going into, half-looking into the store. He should pick up warmer clothes — he’d been on earth for winter before, but not in a climate quite like this, and he never really got used to it. He had a feeling he should find better boots, too.

He frowned and went in.

He’d tried to go shopping with Haechan once and drove him batty — Johnny liked to be efficient while shopping. Considered it a skill. He knew what size he was, what he liked, and what he could afford, and so there was no reason to linger considering between three shirts or to touch each sweater — it didn’t matter.

The store was somewhere between trendy and outdoorsy, which was probably about the combination he was looking for, and wasn’t particularly crowded, which Johnny was thankful for. He’d had enough of humans, really, for the day — even if the press of _people_ wasn’t anywhere near as extreme anywhere on Earth as it was in most of Hell. He smiled politely at the woman who made to greet him upon entering and declined her help. Grabbed two thick sweaters in dark colors off a display and draped them over his arm. Grabbed a long sleeve shirt off the next rack.

Paused.

Did he need to get clothes for Mark?

There was a certain loud percentage of himself that thought, determinedly, _no_. He was sending Mark back as soon as possible, and what did it matter in the slightest if he was sent back in clothes that didn’t fit him or not. There was something unsettling about the thing, the way he’d grinned at Johnny’s discomfort after learning he was soulless — the way he’d seemed to dislike Hell so pointedly.

But, then, the rest of him sort of wondered if he wouldn’t be easier to get along with if he thought Johnny was a little kinder than he was. If he wouldn’t be more likely to listen to him.

Johnny grabbed three long-sleeved striped shirts in various colors a size down from what he’d usually wear, one of the same sweaters he’d grabbed earlier — a size down and in a green, and a pair of black jeans off the rack. There was probably a 5 pack of tee shirts he could find somewhere, and maybe warm socks for both of them.

Johnny sighed — so much for getting in and out of the store quickly.

“Can I help you find anything?” a cheery voice said at his elbow. The woman from the front of the store again. Pretty dark hair and dark eyes, fake smile on her face.

Johnny smiled at her with too many teeth — far too many teeth. “No, I’m fine.”

—

“Do you like Thai food?” Johnny asked by way of greeting as he closed the apartment door behind him. “Or rather, more like, whatever passes for Thai food in Wisconsin?”

Mark looked up at him from the place he continued to occupy on the couch. He looked sort of groggy, hair stuck up in a few different directions, and was still wearing the overlarge sweatshirt and sweatpants Johnny had lent him, blanket draped over his lap. Maybe he’d just woken up. How much sleep did hellhounds need? “I don’t think I’ve ever had Thai food before,” Mark told him.

“No?”

“’S not really a lot of choice, you know — available for strays.” He shrugged a shoulder. Forced nonchalance. Johnny didn’t press.

Johnny set his take out and his shopping bags down on the counter, sorting through them to find the bags with the clothes for Mark. He nearly held them out with a _here_ before remembering his leg.

Instead, he held them in front of him a little and crossed back towards the couch. “I figured you’d be more comfortable in something that fit a little better. I had to guess at sizes.”

Mark grabbed the bags with both hands and brought them down to his lap, forehead scrunched in something like confusion. “You got me clothes?”

“I did,” Johnny confirmed, taking a step or two back. They didn’t know each other and while in Hell Johnny was used to the crush of people everywhere, he’d been bumping into people all day and appreciated the space. “And dinner, if you’re interested. I wasn’t sure how this place handled spice or if you liked spice, so I got some spicy things and some milder things.”

“Okay,” Mark said. He still seemed kind of out of it.

“Are you —” Johnny started, before cutting himself off to press his lips together. He didn’t know enough about hellhounds to tell if this was weird or not, if he was being honest. Was it rude to ask, if it wasn’t?

“I’m fine,” Mark said, waving him off with a hand.

“Are you sure?” Johnny asked. He had some ingrained need to be polite from _somewhere_ , possibly just built into his general tendency towards telling people what they wanted to hear (and who gave a shit if it was the truth), and that polite deference was pointedly kicking him the shins. Mark had _said_ he was fine, and so the correct thing to do would be to treat him as though he was fine. However — “I have some contacts, through my job,” Johnny told him. “I can get you medicine or — or some sort of hellhound specific thing, I guess,” he said with a little laugh. “Whatever you might need,” he said with a little nod, as if to reassure both of them. “Seriously.”

Mark frowned a little — Johnny wasn’t sure if he was confused or disapproving somehow.

“I don’t want to be a bother,” Mark insisted.

“Seriously?” Johnny said, unable to stop himself. He laughed lightly, too. “It’d bother me much more if there was something wrong.”

Mark nodded. A small nod. Like he wasn’t sure he believed him. “I don’t — I’m not sure, but I need something for my leg, I think. I don’t — There used to be this woman, I think she worked in the stables of Hades’s palace. I wasn’t — I didn’t live in there, but she took care of the strays, too. She’d make sure I got these pills. I’m not sure —” He paused, a little flush climbing into his cheeks. Embarrassment, maybe, at not really having an option but to trust her. “I’m not sure if they were just pain management or if they did anything to actually heal it. It wasn’t — it wasn’t always like this. I wasn’t born this way like some of the others were — twisted, strange. The — the injury _happened_ to me.”

Mark’s mouth was set in a dour little line. Unhappy to be revealing so much about himself. “The pills were brown. I don’t have a good guess at size — I mostly took them when I was — the other way.”

“Okay, I’ll see what I can do,” Johnny said with a little nod, and then chose to change the subject.

Mark may have been soulless — and the thought may have made Johnny squirm in the worst way — and sort of out of it, but he’d just been very vulnerable with Johnny and hadn’t been any sort of malicious yet today, and Johnny wasn’t the type to reward good behavior with additional pressing.

“There’s an end table with multiple drawers in the bedroom, that I’m going to switch with one of the ones out here with less storage, that I figure you can put things in to stay organized for now. I’ll leave the bags with clothes for you in the bathroom and you can pick out what you want to wear, and then I’d be happy to carry them back here for you. Do you want to do that now or eat first?”

Mark blinked at him, slow and almost cautious, like he wasn’t sure how he should be responding. And that was fine. Johnny didn’t have a lot of expectations around it — he was just trying to be decent, mostly, and to make him comfortable enough to be easy to talk to, anyway.

A sinking little feeling deep in his stomach wondered if anyone had ever afforded Mark that much.

“Eat first, I think,” Mark said after a moment.

“Okay,” Johnny said.

And then they did — both of them sat at the little dining room table, all the dishes Johnny had ordered dumped into the set of serving bowls he’d fished out of the back of the cabinet. Mark had ended up liking whatever the green one was quite a lot, Johnny had let him eat most of it.

Mark must have caught Johnny glancing over at his laptop and short string of crumbled messages that hovered above it, because he swallowed hard and asked, “Is that guy, like, your assistant?”

“Haechan?” Johnny asked, raising an eyebrow.

“The — he was in the —” Mark said, gesturing at the laptop.

“Yes.” Johnny nodded. “I did a video chat last night with my assistant, Haechan.”

“And he’s in Hell still.”

It wasn’t really a question, but Johnny nodded anyway.

Mark fidgeted with his utensils for a moment. “Does that mean you have to go back?” Mark asked him. 

Johnny nodded again. “Yeah, eventually. I’m just here on business.”

“Business?”

“Yeah, my work place scheduled me a portal here, and I’m here until I get told to come back, basically.”

“But you’ll have to go, then. When they tell you to.”

“More or less.” Johnny shrugged a shoulder. He liked Hell. It was his home. But he could tell this conversation was important to Mark — he was taking initiative in the conversation in ways he hadn’t really other times he’d talked. Maybe he was more comfortable around Johnny, or he felt better now that he’d eaten, or maybe it was something else, but it —

Johnny could see the way thoughts collected themselves for a moment inside of Mark — as he took a moment to arrange them.

“Will I have to go back, too?” He asked eventually. He’d slumped even lower in the chair, shoulders curling in like he was trying to make himself impossibly small. Like if he took up less space, the answer would hurt less.

“In my experience, they don’t particularly like it when Hell-folk outstay their welcome,” Johnny told him. “But I’ve also never looked into it really. I can do some research, and I can get Haechan to look into it, too, if you want.”

“He wouldn’t —” Mark started before cutting himself off.

“Wouldn’t what?” Johnny asked.

“Make me go back,” Mark said with a tight little frown.

“I — I’m not sure what you mean,” Johnny said. He pushed his bangs off his forehead. All he could think about was how _strange_ Mark had seemed last time they talked about Hell. How he’d seemed even more _other_ , at the time, some other piece of him terrifying and just a centimeter beneath his skin. That, and how small and scared he looked now.

Which of them was an act, Johnny wondered.

Mark shook his head instead of answering, pushing himself away from the table with a mumbled, _never mind_ and a _thanks for the food_.

Johnny sighed and cleared the bowls, and tried not to dwell on how much easier it would be to just send him back than _this_ ; these conversations around the thing in hopes of it not being a fight.

There was so little chance of it not being a fight.

—

The rest of the night passed uncomfortably. Johnny had shot off a message to Haechan to confirm that they’d need to delay any plans to send Mark back for at least a little bit and told him he was not to mention it. He’d brought the clothes into the bathroom for Mark, switched the nightstand with storage for the end table without, brought the clothes back out of the bathroom after Mark had changed, and then called a very disheveled-looking Haechan to talk about researching the pills Mark had been on and any other solutions to his injury in general.

Mark sat on the couch, pointedly reading a book he must have filched from somewhere, and not looking at them.

“Oh, it’s pretty late for you, huh?” Johnny remarked as Haechan yawned around an answer.

“S’alright,” Haechan mumbled. “They’ll have to pay me overtime for this; I figure as long as this trip is indefinite, we can talk them into paying any time-difference related overtime without much fuss.”

Johnny grinned. “I’m happy to play dumb for your paycheck, but I’ll do a little better about late hours soon.”

“Good enough,” Haechan said with a little shrug.

“Speaking of indefinitely,” Johnny started.

“Oh?”

“Let’s — if you have a moment to do some more discreet research,” Johnny said, lowering his voice conspiratorially for both Haechan’s benefit and Mark’s. “I’m going to do a little, too, but I just haven’t looked into, like, what happens to people if they overstay their allotted time out of Hell, before, and I think that information is going to be useful.”

“Like,” Haechan started, squinting a little bit. “Like, if you don’t take your supplements?”

Johnny shook his head. “No, but remind me to buy those some time here. Like if someone, hypothetically, did not come back from a scheduled trip. Or took an unscheduled trip, perhaps.”

Haechan’s brow furrowed — not necessarily in concentration or confusion, but more likely in suspicion. “Are you, _hypothetically_ ,” he stared, emphasizing the word in a way that it lost all of its meaning, “planning on missing your portal back, when it’s time for you to come back.”

“No,” Johnny shook his head. He wasn’t. Planning nor thinking about planning. “I’m just curious,” he said, letting Haechan see his eyes glance in Mark’s direction and then away.

“You don’t —”

“Remember that message I sent you earlier?” Johnny asked casually, cutting him off.

“Right,” Haechan said with a firm nod, features arranging into something like determination. “You don’t think I should just order the supplements for you?” he asked seamlessly, bland smile on his face.

“I don’t think you’re allowed, but you can certainly add that to your list of things to look into.”

“Got it,” Haechan said, before yawning again.

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Sure Boss,” Haechan said. “G’night.”

—

Johnny awoke because something felt wrong.

He’d gone to bed early again to be away from the creature who’d taken up residence in his living room and avoid the awkward hostility that might come from speaking with him.

The sun was just beginning to blush the edges of the sky a soft pink. Early still — but he’d probably been sleeping long enough. He’d passed out hard immediately after climbing into bed, the book he’d grabbed (some sci-fi thing) at random from the bookshelf on the other side of the bedroom crumpled against his chest, still opened to the second page. The room was cold, but his bed was pushed up against the window and the window was drafty, so that was probably most of it. He was warm beneath the covers — enough blankets strewn throughout the house to accommodate a true cold snap or several additional beds if need be.

He took a careful assessment, not moving from where he was. Nothing was touching him that shouldn’t have been. Nothing was in the room with him. There was no noise to alert him of what the wrong thing might be, just a _feeling_ sunk low into his stomach.

He wondered if he hadn’t heard something outside the apartment that might have pulled him from sleep. Surely — well, that was the easiest assumption to make, right? He was in a new place, not quite as exhausted as he’d been the night before, maybe a “regular” sort of noise had been just loud enough this morning.

He closed his eyes, trying to sense what the thing might be — where the issue was. He knew Taeyong had some pretty powerful mind abilities — could push his _awareness_ out of himself and find the place that something had changed or where someone was scared, almost as clearly as seeing it with his own eyes. He’d described it to Johnny once, the way everything he could see things in his mind like they were awash in blue light. Johnny was sure that had been useful to him as a field agent.

Johnny had no such abilities, but as a fallen angel (as he was, technically, even as the son of a son of a son of a fallen angel) he’d been granted a little extra intuition. Just a feeling. Sometimes.

The world felt cold and still around him. Nothing out of the ordinary except for the hellhound on the couch in the apartment he was staying in.

Maybe they were the things that were out of place.

With a little frown, Johnny got out of bed, pulling a sweatshirt over the flannel pants and thin tee shirt he’d slept in. He undid the lock to the room, much less fussy than the lock to his Hell-apartment, and padded out into the main room.

Mark was nearly as Johnny had figured he’d be, almost exactly as he’d been the morning before, curled nearly in a ball on the couch beneath the blankets. Though unlike the morning before, Mark had shifted — either before going to sleep or in his sleep, and looked like a hellhound again, fur much cleaner now from the shower he’d taken and the food he’d eaten, though definitely a little thin and sad in some places.

Johnny watched as he snuffled his nose a little more deeply beneath the covers in his sleep, and wondered for a moment if it wasn’t the thing’s shifting that had woken him.

But no — no, a moment later, Johnny understood what it was, as Mark made a terrible grating whimpering sound — the sort of sound that sunk like an alarm into Johnny’s gut, telling him to run, to _flee_.

 _Shit_. Johnny purposefully tensed his legs so he wouldn’t move — it was just —

Mark whined again, a noise like rending metal, shadows lurching in from the corners of the room, gathering and darkening like creatures themselves.

Johnny’s heart thudded in his chest — this was just a nightmare. Just a nightmare Mark was having. He took a step towards him, and then another. Careful, careful.

Mark barked in his sleep — soft-spoken voice giving way to something broken and scrabbling, face and legs twitching. He was panicked. The shadows roiled, bubbling and dangerous. Johnny had to — he had to —

Almost without thinking about it, he closed the gap between them, placing a careful hand on Mark’s furry, asleep shoulder.

The shadows rolled in, blocking out that little bit of pale light filtering through the curtains, gathering and pulsating, reaching with tendriled fingers.

Johnny shook Mark’s shoulder, as gently as he dared. He didn’t want to startle him. Didn’t want —

The shadows paused where they were, heavy and ominous, but no longer growing — no longer reaching. And then Mark stirred, and they retreated — not as quickly as disappearing altogether, but rolling back to where they’d come from, returning to where shadows normally were. No longer as dark, or as condensed, or as looming. Just shadows.

Mark made a little noise that might have been _huh_ , if he were not dog-shaped.

“You were having a nightmare,” Johnny told him. “It woke me up,” he added.

Mark made a face that might have been somewhere between guilt and confusion, eyebrows scrunching in together, eyes earnest and more honest in a way that Johnny thought looked familiar — though, it was hard to say. He mostly just looked like a dog. Mostly. If Johnny didn’t look at his teeth or his mouth or his bone structure for too long. 

Mark moved his dog head in a way that indicated he would like Johnny to look away for a moment, and Johnny obliged, not one to argue with someone without a good reason. Even the hellhound crashing on his couch.

“There,” Mark said after a moment, and when Johnny looked back he looked like a person again, one side of his face a little puffy and pink from laying on it, Johnny’s borrowed sweatshirt thrown over one of his new shirts and a pair of shorts. “Sorry I woke you,” he said, voice a little raspy from sleepy

“Well, I don’t know that it was you so much as the way the shadows were behaving,” Johnny said with a little frown. He’d seen things like that before, curses put on folks or contracted from places, people with something truly _magical_ traded for a part of themselves. He wondered — a little desperately — which sort Mark was specifically, but didn’t know what he’d do with the information.

“Oh,” Mark said, like he hadn’t known. “Oh, yeah — they — that happens sometimes.”

“Have they always done that?” Johnny settled on asking.

“No, it happened with the — with my injury. Around the time that my leg got messed up,” Mark said. He made a face like he didn’t want to talk about it, but he knew that he should — which Johnny was a little surprised about. Previous discussions with Mark hadn’t had much of an aura of understanding how to politely converse with people. This — Maybe it was just that he’d just woken up, but this was different. An improvement. “I didn’t tell you, did I?”

“Tell me?”

“About what happened, with my leg.”

“No,” Johnny said with a curt little shake of his head. He wanted to know, but Mark didn’t have to tell him if he didn’t want to and he almost said as much, but Mark had already started.

“I guess it’s only fair — I was like a _regular_ hellhound at one point. Not one of the strays. I was born healthy — strong even. They’d say things about how smart I was. 

“There was this other _thing_ in the castle, a creature of some kind. I wasn’t sure what — we spend most of the first decade of our lives in dog-form, so the memories are a little weird, they don’t always translate. But I remember he was jealous — he didn’t like that I kept getting brought up as a success. I wasn’t the only one, but I guess he thought he was more deserving than me or something.

“He — I was maybe ten or twelve? I’d just started to be able to shift without having to focus in the same way as a pup, and he — he and one of my siblings, this girl who was really pretty but a little bit — she’d always had a sharp side, you know? A little rude, never knowing when to let things go. I’d seen them talking, and she was my sibling, right, so I — I took the thing they gave me. A little snack of some kind. I thought it was a peace offering. And I ate it — and an hour later, I felt something behind me. Something dark and lurking.

“It’s been there more or less ever since,” Mark said with a wry little expression. He was sad, but not like he wanted to cry about it — more like he was past that point — like he’d already done some grieving. “But those first few weeks were the worst — I hardly slept, I kept feeling it watching me, that thing in the shadows.

“I was climbing an outer staircase, exploring or looking for some place to hide, I’m not really sure, but I must have passed out or fallen asleep or been pushed or something, because then I was falling — falling, and then I _heard_ it before I felt it, my leg crunching under me. And then I remember this white, clinical pain. And then the next few years are a blur of rejection and fear and something like recovery — but I know I wasn’t let back into the castle. I was too different from what I once was.”

“I’m so sorry that happened to you,” Johnny said quietly. He wasn’t sure he could even imagine something like that happening to him. His day to day was a little miserable at times, but it wasn’t actively cruel. And he certainly wasn’t under much threat of physical violence. Most people he was liable to irritate didn’t have the taste for it.

Mark shrugged one thin shoulder. “It happened a long time ago,” he said, like he knew that that didn’t excuse it.

Johnny pressed his lips together for a moment — thinking. “You know,” he said eventually. “I should have asked this that first night, but is there anything I can get you to help?”

“Oh,” Mark said, surprised at the offer. “No, no I don’t need help. You’ve done plenty — I —”

“Looking into like, a mobility aid isn’t going to be extra work,” Johnny said, shaking his head. He made eye contact very, very carefully — trying his best to not be unnerved by those soulless eyes. And it was — it was easier here, in the soft light of morning than it had been before to meet them. He tried to press sincerity into his words, so Mark would feel it. “Like I told you before, helping you isn’t a bother. I have all this time in front of me here, the very, very least I could do would be to make things a little easier on you. And I would like to help.”

“I — I never much liked crutches or canes,” Mark said quietly, like he was embarrassed at having a preference. Like he was embarrassed to admit he’d tried them. Johnny frowned. “Honestly, that’s part of why I was shifted when I —” he cut himself off, just a little bit of pink blushing his cheeks as they both remember the specific circumstances to how he ended up here. “And well, it’s easiest to get around in dog-form, because I can keep my weight off the leg most easily. But I did have a sort of boot for a while that helped.”

“Okay,” Johnny said with a little nod. “Haechan’s working on getting me in contact with the place I need to get my supplements from — it’s usually a sort of specifically-catered pharmacy. I bet we can get you set up in the next day or two.”

“I don’t want to be an inconvenience,” Mark mumbled.

Johnny’s heart broke for him a little bit, to see him so small and curled in on himself. To see him — so neglected from however many years he’d spent forced to struggle in that nothing space between Hades’s palace and the portals. He mustered all the kindness that he could, despite being a little indifferent to Mark’s presence in general and _angry_ that he’d been left like that for so long. “Things that better your quality of life are not, in any way, an inconvenience,” Johnny told him. “You are not less important than any other person, and you deserve to be happy and cared for, even and especially if you require more care than others.”

Mark sat still for a long moment, nose slowly turning pinker as tears crept into his eyes.

“Wait,” Johnny said with a grimace and a little laugh. “Hey, don’t cry. I’m sorry if that was too forceful.” Mark started waving him off, but it was — Johnny felt _bad_ , he’d said something to make Mark cry. He worried he was handling this whole thing completely incorrectly; worried he was the wrong sort of person to have the responsibility of taking care of someone else. He crouched down closer and kept talking. “Jaehyun says I can be an asshole when I’m particularly direct — that he doesn’t understand how I ever keep assistants for more than a year.”

“No, you’re fine —” Mark said with a wet-sounding chuckle. “I just — I’m not used to people offering to do things for me.”

Johnny nodded — of course he wasn’t. That made total sense. “Okay,” he said. And then, “Do you want a cookie?”

Mark nodded with a watery little smile, and Johnny went to dig in the cupboards.

—

Johnny found a box of knock off peanut butter girl scout cookies in a cupboard, next to his favorite crackers and an unopened jar of feta-stuffed olives, among other things — which was a little worrying in and of itself, that they had set him up with so many of his favorite things. How long was an undetermined amount of time planned to be _exactly_?

He resolved to worry about it later, and brought the cookies back to the couch to share with Mark, who took one look at the peanut butter cookies and got so excited Johnny could practically see his tail wagging.

Johnny decided just then that he wasn’t afraid of him anymore. Not after seeing him cry because someone had expressed concern about him and shown genuine excitement about treat-food. He might have certainly been sort of _other_ , but he wasn’t _scary_.

At least, not any scarier than most people.

Mark devoured three cookies in the first minute Johnny had sat next to him and Johnny cracked a smile, amused at his enthusiasm.

There was something softer about both of them, maybe, in the early morning hours. Johnny wondered a little if he shouldn’t have done something like this yesterday morning. If they wouldn’t have gotten along better sooner. But he was prone to that — second guessing himself.

He said the thing he’d been half-trying to say the entire time and didn’t stop himself. “I was going to send you back that day we got here. I very nearly tried to.” He looked straight ahead; did not look at Mark, just listened to him pause in the middle of crunching down his fourth cookie.

“Okay,” Mark said, as if waiting for more.

“And I still think that might be best — I work weird hours, and I don’t know how long I’m going to be here, and I’m terrible at taking care of people —”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Mark said, interrupting him.

“No, I am. I have plenty of exes who can corroborate my claims, I’ve never had pets because I know it would end badly, and I have a whole fleet of half-neglected plants being watched by my boss while I’m here that are probably much better off for it,” Johnny said, pushing his bangs off his forehead. There were some things he just knew about himself. This was one of them.

“I — I don’t know what sort of circumstances happened with your exes,” Mark said, and there was something in his voice that was almost — diplomatic. Like he was trying to break something to Johnny gently. “But in the little while I’ve known you, you have taken very good care of me.”

“I don’t know that that’s true,” Johnny said patiently. He was thinking of how he’d half-concocted plans to trick Mark into going back; how he’d snuck out early yesterday morning to avoid talking to him. He picked another cookie up, more for something to do with his hands than any desire for cookies so early in the morning.

Mark shook his head. “You carried me across the city instead of leaving me where we portaled in, you gave me food and water and a place to sleep when I was a dog, and then blankets and something warm to wear when I was a person. You bought me clothes and more food, are working on finding me medicine — I cannot express that I have never felt more well taken care of. By anyone.”

The words landed like Mark had intended them to — hard. Johnny swallowed around the lump in his throat.

Part of him marveled how how sad that was — that Mark thought that _he_ , selfish, forgetful, fallen angel Johnny Suh was taking care of him well. Part of him started to wonder if it wasn’t true a little bit, that he was doing a better job than he usually would and what that might mean about whatever interactions he was having with the hellhound on his couch.

Mark was just being nice, he told himself.

He smiled blandly and said something like _I’m sorry to hear that_ , and got back up to go get ready for the day because he could feel Mark’s eyes on him and it was too much for how early it was in the morning, for how vulnerable to pair of them both were in the pink light of morning.

Even as he did it, he could tell that it wasn’t the _correct_ or kind way to leave the situation. Even as he did it, he felt a little guilty about it.

When he emerged from the bedroom again, not in his pajamas, Mark was in the shower where he remained for the twenty minutes Johnny spent shifting through his to do list from yesterday, and the one message he’d gotten about the location of the pharmacy from Haechan and it was fair, probably, that Mark wouldn’t want to spend more time with him.

They’d both made things awkward, he told himself.

Even if Johnny had been the one to get up, to walk away from it, it had been Mark’s sincerity that had pushed things too far.

He fixed his bangs in the mirror and then knocked on the bathroom door before leaving — “I’m going to head out, there’s leftovers, but eat whatever food you want.”

Whatever Mark said back was muffled by the door.

It was just as well.

—

The address of the store Haechan had found for Johnny as the closest place to get supplements was just on the other side of the downtown area — maybe a mile and a half away. Perfect for a walk, first thing in the morning.

He stopped on his way over in a different little coffee shop, this one not quite as dirty but still sort of gross, the coffee not quite as strange but still not quite right.

The weather was cold, and he was grateful for the new warm charcoal sweater and thick winter jacket he’d bought for himself last night. The sky was gray, now that the pink had faded out of it, the sun lost somewhere behind a matte sheet of cloud.

The store was an odd little place — Johnny walked past it accidentally twice, no display window or sign to signal it as anything other than a back entrance or storage room. Inside, while there was a little checkout counter sort of off to the left, it didn’t look much different. Rows upon rows of jars and vials and boxes of things lined dozens of shelves, aisles just a little too thin. It smelled somewhere between chemical and spice — equal parts natural and man-made cures in the industrial shelving.

“Can I help you find anything?” asked the woman at the counter, mild politeness fixed onto her face, a magazine held aloft in her black painted nails. Apparently she didn’t get a lot of business. Johnny was the only person in the building besides her.

“Uh,” Johnny said. And then, “Yes, I think so. There’s this brand my assistant said you might carry —” he fished in his pockets for the scrap of paper he’d written the name down on. “— Pharmacphaen?”

The woman’s eyebrows shot up and then she grinned and hopped down from her chair. “Yes we do, it’s just — “ she came out from behind the counter and gestured for him to follow her. “— over this way, we don’t get a lot of you in here but it’s best to keep it out of other customer’s way — not that it would hurt them or anything, I don’t think? At least, it doesn’t seem to have anything in it particularly damaging to like a _human_ human, you know? But just to keep it out of their way. Bottom shelf right here. Uh — what are you, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“What do you mean?” Johnny asked her, eyebrows tenting.

“Like, there’s different types for Nephilim vs. creatures vs. demons, et cetera, et cetera, all the way down,” she said, cocking her head a little.

“Ah,” Johnny said. If she were fazed by his presence at all, she hid it well. “Descendant of a fallen angel, but not Nephilim,” he told her. And then, “I don’t — I don’t suppose there’s anything for hellhounds, or?”

“Ah, okay, yeah, there’s a serving for them on the creatures bottle,” she said, crouching to fish it from the shelf. “And then, for you — we don’t carry anything specifically for you, but I looked it up and confirmed with one of the other stores when the other guy called that the cut is literally just two parts angel, one part demon. Do you want a bottle of each or two of the angel?”

“Better make it two of the angel, I’m going to be here for a while,” Johnny said with a wan little smile. Of course she’d talked to Haechan already.

She nodded, almost in understanding, before grabbing all the pill bottles he needed off the shelf and standing, dusting off her knees with her other hand. “Just follow the directions on the bottle. I’ve heard it can sometimes help to chase with like a bit of ginger, turmeric, and lemon in some water — makes it absorb better? We sell a tea of it.”

“Might as well,” Johnny said with a mild nod.

“Okay,” she said. “Anything else I can help you find?”

“Um, actually, I think so. My —” the word caught in his throat. _His_. That — the word felt like it was clawing at his ribs. Something terrible and sticky to it. He told him that it was because it was inaccurate. “Mark, the hellhound I’m here with, he asked me to look for these pills that he usually has. Haechan might have mentioned them,” Johnny said, and then described the pill.

The cashier’s brow furrowed. “What are you doing travelling with a cursed hellhound?”

 _Cursed_ , the word was jarring — he wasn’t sure why, but hearing it said aloud was much worse than thinking that might have been what happened to Mark by himself, in the privacy of his own mind. He pressed his lips together.

“It’s to treat a curse?” Johnny asked.

She nodded. “Sort of. It’s to slow it, or rather — sort of muffle the affects of it. Like — I don’t know if we have anything that could treat a curse like that? But we have the pills somewhere, I think. We might even keep them behind the counter, they’re sort of potent.”

She frowned and started off towards the front of the store, leaving Johnny to rebalance the bottles of pills in his arms before following. By the time he’d reached the counter and was placing them in a careful line, she was rummaging in the back row of cabinets, several medium-sized cardboard boxes spread around her.

“Ah!” she said triumphantly, emerging from the cupboard with a smaller bottle with a brown label. “I knew we still had some.” She set the pill bottle down beside her, with a bland smile. “Anything else, I can help with?” she asked, not bothering to get up just yet.

If the pills were to treat the curse and not Mark’s leg — 

“Yes, actually,” Johnny said with a little nod.

The cashier sighed, though expression was good-natured, and stood.

—

She’d given him her number, after they’d tracked down something to help with any pain Mark was in, and something that might actually start to heal the injury, and then a couple different sizes of boot that might fit the hellhound when Johnny had mentioned he wasn’t sure what size Mark was.

(”He’s pretty small,” he’d said with a little nod.

“Small compared to you?” she’d asked with a teasing grin, “or like, regular people?”)

He wasn’t sure why it surprised him — if he thought about it, it probably shouldn’t have. She’d been smiling the whole time, had touched his arm carefully a few times and let it linger the third as they chatted about possible solutions to the pain issue.

Johnny had taken the scrap of paper she’d proffered with his receipt, not really registering as he’d gathered his things and left, plastic bag swishing as he squished it against his chest. He’d thanked her; for the help in general or for the number he wasn’t really sure.

He’d been distracted, was the thing, through most of their interaction. Too hung up on the phrase he’d almost used earlier.

 _My hellhound_.

Some part of him had tried to brush it off as a slip of the tongue, something inconsequential. But the rest of him —

He hardly knew Mark. Knew a little bit of his past, knew he could be terrifying if he wanted to, knew he didn’t have a lot of experience with kindness — but still, the rest of Johnny had caught on the sound of it. Had let the words rattle around in his brain; had almost felt them on his tongue.

He threw away the number in a trashcan on the corner of the next block, stuffed the receipt in his pocket since he needed to hold onto it for a future expense report.

He kept walking. Past the snowy space around the capital, carefully weaving around people on their morning commute in from the parking garages dispersed almost randomly throughout the downtown area. A trio of construction workers sat on a bench across the road from what looked more or less like a very large hole they were digging; Johnny listened carefully to hear if they were catcalling at all — he could always stake out targets for his job ahead of time.

Slush crunched unsatisfyingly beneath his boots.

It’s not something he’d thought about. Not really. Not yet. They hadn’t known each other very long — and sure, maybe — maybe he’d felt _something_ when Mark had told him how sincerely he thankful he was. But that was a shitty reason to fall for someone, he told himself, as though that were the only reason he’d have if he were to fall for Mark.

Regardless, it was the only thing he was thinking about as he made the walk back towards the apartment, and it was the only thing he was thinking about as he fussed with the key to let himself in, and it was the only thing he was thinking about when he opened the door to a half-asleep Mark pushing himself to a sitting position on the couch, like Johnny had woken him up by coming home.

His hair was messy, face a little puffy from sleep — though still far too gaunt.

Johnny held the bag out in front of him, almost in offering. In apology. Mark’s eyebrows raised a little but he stayed where he was.

He yawned and then said, “I didn’t think you were coming back this morning.”

“Oh — no, I wasn’t going to, but the bag from the supplement store was heavier than I expected and I didn’t want to carry it around all day.”

“Okay,” Mark said with a little nod.

“I talked to the — the woman who was cashiering, and she found those pills you had been taking. Apparently they’re to treat your curse rather than like, your leg injury?”

Mark’s eyes widened a little in surprise. “Oh,” he said for a second, looking to the bag Johnny was holding and then away. “Oh that makes sense, actually.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Mark nodded. “My — I had always wondered why it would almost — like, fluctuate. And get so much worse sometimes. I guess it makes sense that if some of the time I had like, a — a suppressant or whatever, that the curse would be milder then.”

“Milder, but not gone?” Johnny asked. It felt weirder than it had before to have the conversation across the room from him, so he moved to sit on the opposite end of the couch from Mark, who pulled his feet in a little but didn’t react otherwise.

“No,” Mark shook his head. “Never gone.” He made a little face, like he wanted to laugh about it but wasn’t sure how to. Johnny found himself wondering what Mark would _usually_ be like, when he wasn’t like this. Wasn’t thrown into close proximity with a stranger, dealing with a body in pain that prohibited him from getting around easily, trying to get away from a _curse_.

“What —” Johnny started, not sure if he was allowed to ask. Not sure how friendly he was allowed to be — he’d walked away this morning in the middle of bonding. And maybe that was fine. But maybe it wasn’t. “What’s it like when it’s bad?” he asked eventually.

Mark frowned, small and tight. “You know, I’d sort of wondered if it would get better if I got out of Hell; if maybe the things were part of the place. If I — if I could escape them here, but you know — we both know that that’s not true. They were here this morning. They’re here whenever I sleep.” He picked at a loose thread in the blanket, something to fidget with.

“Is it — is it just that they’re scary, or do they hurt you, too?”

Mark shrugged a shoulder. “I feel sort of unlucky when it’s at its strongest, it’s not there yet but it would be probably if I skipped a whole week. But, no, the shadows they just — they engulf me sometimes. Make me feel like I’m drowning. Make me sleep deprived. Whisper things to me.” He made a little face and Johnny politely ignored how watery his expression was.

“I’m sorry,” Johnny said quietly. There was a lull — there was no telling what either of them might say. It felt like he had far too many options. His attention fell back to the bag he’d carried in with him. He cleared his throat. “She — the cashier, she gave me some supplements for you, so you won’t get as Earth-sick, and I got some stuff that should help with your leg, too,” Johnny said, rummaging in the bag and pulling all the bottles out from around the boots and setting them between them. “This one’s for pain, and then this one might actually do some work to heal it long-term, and there’s a salve because she said it might help, and then these,” he said, taking the boots out of the bag.

Mark’s eyes widened; he didn’t say anything. 

“I’ll bring back whichever one doesn’t fit — I wasn’t sure what size you’d be?” Johnny said, for something to say.

“I didn’t know you were doing this,” Mark said, reaching carefully for them. Johnny watched as he handled them carefully, as if afraid he’d break them if he gripped them too tightly. “Johnny —” he said, looking up at him suddenly.

“It’s okay,” Johnny said, holding up his hands like it would stop Mark from thanking him. “It’s the decent thing to do. It was no bother. Really.”

Mark was quiet for a moment. Johnny watched him, wishing he were more familiar with his expressions — not sure what to make of what might have been curiosity and might have been earnestness and might have been fondness.

Did Johnny have any right to guess at fondness? A dull little voice in the back of his head told him of course not.

“Thank you anyway,” Mark said with a little shake of his head. “Genuinely. I’m not sure I have the words to describe how appreciative I am.”

“Then don’t,” Johnny blurted, with half a mind to get up and walk away again. The only thing that stopped him was how terrible it had felt to do just that this morning.

Mark made a face like he was going to laugh at him and then said, “Okay.”

He started shifting his weight around to get his leg out from under him. Johnny stood, too aware that it might feel like an invasion of privacy to watch Mark try on the boots. Might be too intimate.

Mark stopped him with a quiet, “Could you help me with this?”

“Oh!” Johnny said, crumbling the plastic bag in his hands to throw away. “Yeah, of course.”

“I can probably do it myself, but knowing my luck, I’d miss a strap or something and have a bad understanding of the fit,” Mark said. He swung his leg down off the couch. “Tumble right out of them.”

Johnny threw the bag away and then went to sit on the floor in front of Mark, who was pulling up his pant leg. Johnny was quiet, politely looking away while Mark situated himself.

Instead, he looked at the painting that hung on the wall over the couch, looking over Mark’s shoulder. It was pretty large, though it was one of just a few pieces of art in the apartment, so it didn’t seem overly imposing. The frame was simple and black, the forms just verging into abstract — mostly blue and white and yellow. It was clear what it was, though, the shape of a wing, and then a body, and the burst of yellow above its head. An angel. Someone’s attempt at a joke.

Johnny thought of his own wings that he kept mostly hidden away and wondered if in another life they might have been as fluffy and white as the figure in the painting. He’d never met a proper angel before. He’d heard they were mostly full of themselves — but part of him had always sort of wondered if that wasn’t mostly jealousy on the part of whoever was observing them.

“You’re going to have to look at my leg,” Mark told him kindly — jolting Johnny from his thoughts.

Johnny brought his eyes to Mark’s face instead, forced a friendly smile. “Sorry, I can do that,” he said.

“It’s okay to feel weird about it, it’s a little like looking into a stranger’s underwear drawer or something, right?” Mark said. His soulless eyes scrunching up at the corners. Johnny wasn’t sure if he was in a better mood in general, or if he just liked that Johnny was out of his element. 

He supposed it could be both.

“Oh, I —” Johnny started to protest. He was going to say that he hadn’t been nervous to look at the injury, but both of them knew that wasn’t true. Johnny knew that he had been purposefully avoiding looking at the leg altogether; for all he knew, the thing was held together with duct tape. He’d told himself that he’d been avoiding the area out of politeness, but he was sure that Mark was used to that too — which made it a little bit rude on its own. “You’re right,” he said with a sheepish smile.

The leg was both better and worse than he’d thought it would be.

There was a deep, terrible scar ripping into the flesh, sort of like someone had stitched the thing together on the fly when maybe there should have been some skin grafting attempted or something. Johnny remembered what injuries _used_ to look like on folks that had been in wars a half century or so ago now and hadn’t quite made it out. The technology had changed both above and below since, so there was less of the terrible distortion of best attempts on new-comers. But he remembered.

But, the scar was fully healed, lighter than he’d guessed it would be, and didn’t seem in any way infected or swollen. The tissue was a little ragged, but not overly puckered and went from about halfway down Mark’s shin to just at his ankle.

“Does it hurt if I touch it?” Johnny asked.

“Probably a little,” Mark said. “Just do your best.”

Johnny nodded, reaching to guide Mark’s foot into the first boot. He mostly held onto the boot, pulling fasteners out of the way and letting Mark tug at the top of it to situate himself, but once touched very very lightly at the back of his calf.

It — it probably should have been mundane. Johnny tried to treat it like it was mundane. But he found himself dwelling on it — that little touch.

 _Stupid_ , he told himself, this whole thing was stupid. They’d been thrown together; Mark had come with him on a whim; they were _vastly_ different people with vastly different goals.

But he still wondered if Mark was paying attention to that touch on the back of his calf the same way Johnny was.

“I think this one’s too big,” Mark said, swinging his foot lightly after Johnny had finished doing up the fasteners.

Johnny nodded. There was a good bit of space on one side of Mark’s foot, and more than half of the fasteners were done as tightly as they could be.

They took the boot off together, carefully working around each other — Johnny tried not to touch him, tried not to dwell on how close their faces were to each other as Mark leaned down to see better and Johnny leaned forward to get the best angle around his legs. Part of him almost felt as though he needed to hold his breath. Part of him knew that was stupid.

“I’m going to just —” Johnny said, gesturing, before cupped his palm nearly around the back of Mark’s calf, guiding the limb from the boot.

“Thanks,” Mark said. There was something in his voice, what was it — what was it. Embarrassment? Johnny guessed, but from where? Needing help?

Johnny shrugged and nodded. “Of course.”

The next boot went on a little less smoothly as there was less extra room and as they tightened it together to try and get the fit right, Mark gasped as a bit of the fastener folded in against his shin.

Johnny’s first thought was that he wanted to eat the sound.

His second was that he’d fucked up.

(The third was embarrassment that he’d had the first thought at all.)

“Shit — okay, let me —” he said, carefully unfastening the ones around the rogue fastener to get the boot loose enough to fold the part back out without digging into Mark’s skin even more than it had been. “Better?”

Mark nodded, face a little bit pale and splotchy, lips pressed tightly together.

“Are you sure?” Johnny asked, searching Mark’s face. “We can stop for a bit if we need to. Shit, we can try again tomorrow, or next week if we need to.”

“Next week?” Mark asked, eyebrows tenting together.

“Yeah,” Johnny said. Nodded decisively. “Why?”

“I think I’m okay to keep going,” Mark said, instead of answering. Johnny redid the part that they’d messed up, careful, careful, careful. And then the process was done — the boot was on, laced and tightened. No extra space around the toe, nothing pulled too tight or too loose.

“How does it feel?” Johnny asked him, cocking his head.

Mark sighed lightly, swinging the boot a little to get a feel for the weight. “Strange,” he admitted. “It’s been a while.”

“Do you want to try walking around a little?” Johnny asked, standing and offering him a hand.

Mark seemed to pause to consider the hand for a moment before nodding and grabbing it to haul himself up. He stood very still for a moment, either out of a need to get his balance or something else, but Johnny kept his hand out for him to hold. At least one of their hands was very sweaty and the contact burned, but maybe that was just Johnny imagining things. Maybe it was just Johnny paying far too much attention to how small Mark’s fingers looked compared to his; how tight his grip was.

“Do you have it?” Johnny asked.

“Not sure,” Mark said with a little self-deprecating laugh. He took a tentative step, fingers still gripping tightly to Johnny’s like he was afraid he’d fall right to the ground if he let go.

“I’ve got you,” Johnny told him. He meant it. “Try and take a couple steps?”

Mark nodded, and took a step and then another. His gait was strange and staggered, not quite a limp, not quite something else.

“How are you on pain? Better? Worse?”

“Better. Feels weird for my foot to stay still, and I think I’ll definitely have to get used it,” Mark said, walking in a circle around Johnny, not letting go of him. “But it’s not anywhere near as uncomfortable as it is to walk without it.” He gestured for help to sit and Johnny obliged. When Mark took his hand back, Johnny almost protested, but he ended up reconsidering as he saw Mark’s grin break across his face, almost as though he hadn’t let himself get excited until just then. “I think we have a winner.”

“Good,” Johnny said with a little nod. He could bring the others back now — he should really get started on work some time here. He was sure if he glanced over at the little desk he’d see messages stacked up from Haechan and Taeyong and whoever else.

There was an expression on Mark’s face, almost like he was trying to hide an excitement and failing. “I know better than to thank you again,” he said softly, with a soft of half-grin. “But I’m really — I don’t know what else I’d say.”

“You don’t have to say anything,” Johnny assured him. “I just —”

Mark interrupted him. “I know, I know, you were just doing what any decent person would do. That doesn’t make it less — fuck, lifechanging?”

Johnny snickered and then sighed and glanced at the messages — five hung there, slightly wrinkled the way most of them seemed to be when they made their way to Earth. Something about the portaling process made everything a little less pristine.

“You have to get to work,” Mark said. It wasn’t a question — they both knew it as a truth. He didn’t necessarily sound unaffected by the statement, though.

“Yeah,” Johnny said with a wry little smile. He had some flexibility, and it wasn’t like he’d get in trouble unless it was a habit, but it had to be nearing noon and he hadn’t _really_ done anything.

Still, he found himself lingering even as he checked his messages (two from Haechan, one from Taeyong, and two from Jaehyun with questions about one of the projects he’d taken over), and got the boots together to bring back, and put his coat on.

“Keep an eye on your toes and like, circulation and stuff,” Johnny found himself saying as he put his gloves on. It wasn’t that cold out. He didn’t really need gloves. He wondered if Mark knew that, too, or if _he_ was the only one aware of how ridiculous he was being.

“Yes Nurse Johnny,” Mark said lightly, snuggling back down into his nest on the couch.

Johnny grinned and went off to work.

—

The walk back across town was more or less uneventful. 

He paused to get some work in near most of the cafes on the way. He was annoyed to find that they were mostly polite, though at the third cafe he paused in front of, he did observe two individuals being outstandingly rude for no discernible reason — there was yelling involved, and even through the window Johnny could catch the _tone_ at which they inflicted themselves on the manager (while slowing down service for everyone else).

He lingered near the door as they exited, scoffing to each other and shaking their heads. Almost as though acting the part in a private theater for themselves. Johnny pretended to be engrossed in the newspaper he was holding, and stuck a foot out at the precise moment to trip the second one — who splashed her coffee all over the back of the first one. He frowned at her, wrinkling his nose a little bit, an implied _what’s your problem_ in his expression.

She frowned at him, but didn’t yell — though she looked like she wanted to. Victory for him.

He saw the baristas exchanging delighted expressions through the window. He figured that as a job well done.

His phone rang just as he re-started his walk to the supplement shop.

“Hey,” he answered it, not bothering to look at the caller’s name. It was either Haechan or it wasn’t.

“Good morning, Boss,” Haechan said, sounding annoyed.

“Good — noon? Ish?” Johnny asked, not sure what time it was there. “What’s up?”

Haechan sighed. Johnny could hear him fussing with something on his desk, maybe the tin of lip balm that was always there or maybe he was stressed enough that he’d bothered to dig out the fidget cube he kept tucked at the back of his top right drawer. Johnny would sometimes leave conference swag on his own desk, so if they had to talk in Johnny’s office, Haechan had something he could grab and twist in his hands. He’d had a spinning ring for awhile, but Johnny hadn’t seen it in a while — maybe he’d misplaced it.

“What did you spend _that_ much money on at the supplement shop?” Haechan asked. “And also, how?”

Johnny laughed. “How do you know how much I spent?”

“Spending notifications for that card go to my email — I’m supposed to keep an eye on you for fraud.”

“Oh, right, that. I’m about to return some of it, so it should be a little bit less here in a bit.”

“What did you buy?” Haechan asked again.

“I mean —” Johnny said, pausing to wait at a red light. A man already standing at the crosswalk gave him a careful once over; maybe he looked good today? It was always hard to tell human’s standards from the underworlds. “Just supplements and stuff.” He wasn’t sure why he was hesitating. It wasn’t like he’d get in trouble — the worst that would happen was that they’d tell him he needed to pay part of it with his own money.

But maybe it felt like admitting to something. Some fondness. But that was silly, too — he’d have done the same if he wasn’t fond of Mark. He knew at least that about himself.

“And stuff,” Haechan repeated.

“Yeah, that’s part of why I sent that message off this morning that you wouldn’t have to look into the pills anymore for the hellhound. I found them at the supplement shop.”

“You spent _that_ much on pills for the hellhound?” Haechan asked.

“Well,” Johnny said. “That, and some other stuff for him, and a boot for his foot.”

“I figured you didn’t need the pills anymore because you’d found a way to get rid of him.”

“Get rid of him?” Johnny found himself echoing.

Haechan had said it casually — hadn’t meant anything cruel about it. “Yeah, like, send him back or find someone else for him to stay with or something. Like we were originally planning, you know? Before he shifted.”

“Oh, ha, yeah,” Johnny said. “Yeah, I — I guess I never really updated you about that.”

“Updated me how?” Haechan asked. He sounded amused more than anything, which was probably a good sign. Or at least, that’s what Johnny told himself.

“Oh, I —” What were the words for this?

Part of the issue was that Johnny hadn’t really talked it over with himself yet, so the words for what had happened weren’t really _there_. He couldn’t explain it to Haechan, because he wasn’t sure what was happening. Not yet anyway.

“I told him that I had planned to send him back and instead of talking about how that might happen, the conversation ended with him thanking me for taking care of him,” Johnny said. “He’s — sort of pitiful right now, I figure the kind thing to do is let him rest up — I know I’m historically pretty hopeless at taking care of people, but he doesn’t seem to be annoyed by me yet.”

“Uh huh,” Haechan said. He didn’t sound convinced.

“Really!” Johnny protested. “He doesn’t.”

“Are you sure you’re not just like — procrastinating starting the work up there?” Haechan asked. Johnny could hear him clicking around, half-distracted and working on something else, whatever he’d been fidgeting with put down in favor of work. He supposed that meant they’d gotten out of crisis mode, if Haechan was only giving him part of his attention.

“Maybe a little,” Johnny admitted with a laugh. “But I don’t know that that matters. Like, what are they going to do, send me back? Oh _no_.”

Haechan laughed slightly. “Yeah, I guess you’re right — you’d _hate_ that.”

“Speaking of,” Johnny started. “How do we — did you find out anything more about overstaying trips? I don’t know that the hounds would come for a hound, but that sounds just as traumatizing.”

“I looked a little,” Haechan said. Voice a little fainter than it had been as he leaned away from the phone. “I didn’t find much admittedly. I assume you’re looking for precedence of it going _not_ poorly. It’s mostly just things related to significant others and fooling specific gods, which do not seem to be your specific case. I can send you what I found.”

“Please do,” Johnny said, making a mental note that he might have to do some research himself.

Haechan paused, maybe to click back into the email he’d called about. “What did you all buy for him, then?”

“Supplements,” Johnny said, counting out the things on his fingers. “Some pain pills, some pills that are supposed to treat his injury and possibly heal it a little more than it is. Those brown pills, which I learned from the cashier are to treat his curse I guess, and then some options for a walking boot for him to make it easier for him to get around.”

“His _what_?” Haechan asked.

“Walking boot?” Johnny asked.

“No,” Haechan said, like it should have been obvious. “No, his _curse_ , did you say he’s _cursed_.”

“Oh,” Johnny said. “Yeah. Yeah, he’s been cursed for a while I guess, that’s what the brown pills treat I guess?”

There was silence on the other end. Johnny knew curses were not anything to be flippant about, but Haechan’s reaction made him wonder if it wasn’t a bigger deal than Johnny had realized. He’d never been cursed, but knew it wasn’t _that_ rare.

“Cursed _how_?” Haechan asked eventually. 

“He’s — I guess I’m not sure?” Johnny said. “He was having a nightmare last night and the shadows sort of — came for him? Does that sound like a thing?”

“Maybe,” Haechan said. He didn’t sound sure. “I can look it up. Just be careful — you’re never really able to tell what exactly’s going on with cursed people. Might not even be them.”

Johnny shrugged, even though Haechan couldn’t see him. “I haven’t known him for that long anyway. Whatever he is right now doesn’t seem to be _that_ worrying.” Johnny specifically did not mention that Mark was soulless; he couldn’t imagine Haechan taking that in stride when he was already all worked up about Mark sticking around in general.

“Okay,” Haechan said, and then, “It’s just — Boss?”

“Yeah?”

“Be careful.” Johnny wasn’t sure he’d ever gotten such sincerity from Haechan before, and was caught between feeling touched and uncomfortable. “I’d hate to have to find another job on such short notice.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Johnny said cheerily, before hanging up.

—

He returned the boots and politely ignored the cashier’s flirting. The rest of his work day was fine, if sort of monotonous.

He was usually the sort of person who would keep walking around the city after he’d finished with his shift, ducking into shops and bars and parks, milling around to blend himself into humanity — but he found himself returning home right after work. Eager to see how Mark was faring with the boot, or maybe eager to sit down and relax and get out of problem solving mode, or maybe eager to — 

To see Mark?

The thought was silly. Impractical. He hardly knew Mark. If it was just any connection he was looking for, he could find that in just about any other place as well — find someone to talk to while wandering through a book store or the farmer’s market. Find someone to eat with on the way to a restaurant.

But he returned to the apartment anyway, Korean take out carried in a grocery bag, too much for two people for one meal, but he wasn’t sure what Mark liked besides _meat_ (and peanut butter cookies), and leftovers would almost certainly get eaten.

It was a sort of dance around each other in the little apartment, not _really_ set up for two people more or less unfamiliar with each other to cohabitate.

Johnny learned that the boot was helping, but he’d had it on a little too tightly and ended up with a half-asleep foot. Mark wasn’t sure if the pills were helping yet, but he’d taken each of them as directed after Johnny had left to actually go to work.

It was — a relief of sorts, to learn of the ways Mark felt that his life had been improved upon while staying there.

Johnny wasn’t sure how to express it, not properly, but he did his best to include him in things — they paged through the television channels together to find something to watch, Johnny asked Mark his opinion on one of the sweaters he’d gotten but wasn’t sure about, he talked about an issue Jaehyun had run into on his project.

And he’d worried a little that he’d be making the effort alone, that Mark might try and keep his distance or not be ready to interact properly or something else altogether, but he didn’t — he laughed along at the Jaehyun anecdote and he had opinions about the movie Johnny chose, and chatted quietly, good-naturedly along with Johnny with any quips he made about the movie. He ended up falling asleep well before the end, and Johnny made sure to lay a blanket over him before he went to bed himself.

Maybe it was too soon, but it felt, just a little, like progress. Like learning who the other person was. Like — like _something_.

—

“What do you do all day?” Mark asked him as Johnny was unloading his bags of takeout a few days later.

The rest of the first week and then a weekend had passed, with only one other morning starting with Mark shifted and the shadows crawling in, in, _in_ for him. They’d walked to and then through the farmer’s market about four blocks over on Saturday morning, and though they’d had to stop to sit a few times, both of them had enjoyed it.

Yesterday, during Johnny’s near-daily videochat with Haechan at the beginning of the work day, Mark had popped into the background purposefully to wave.

It was — it was nice. As much as Johnny didn’t _really_ want to be here indefinitely, and as much as he wasn’t sure what might happen next, it was _nice_ and so rewarding to see Mark able to do things himself — to get home from work and find him at the table or puttering around the kitchen or the little balcony instead of in that same spot on the couch.

Johnny had picked a Mediterranean place that looked sort of good this time, even if he seemed to have a very different cilantro opinion (negative) from whoever thought up the menu.

“I could ask you the same thing,” Johnny quipped.

“You go first,” Mark said, with a little grin.

“So, I go to _work_ ,” Johnny said, to pick on him just a little bit. “Where I basically am contracted mischief from Hell; there’s a whole bit I could give, and will if you feel strongly about it, but basically it was decided a while ago that people who do bad things on Earth should preemptively suffer punishment on Earth.” He shrugged a shoulder, but saw Mark scrunch up his nose in revulsion, so he clarified, “I’m not like, pushing anyone into traffic or sleeping with their spouses — at least not most of the time. It’s just like rude behavior in return for rude behavior mostly.”

“Rude behavior?” Mark asked.

“Right,” Johnny nodded. “Like, if someone’s very rude to a waiter or a cashier or their partner or a stranger on the street — there I’ll be, looking at them in distaste and maybe filching their car keys.”

“So you’re a pest,” Mark said with a little laugh. “For a living.”

“In the grand scheme of things maybe,” Johnny agreed. He shrugged his shoulders. Got down some bowls from the cabinet. “Sometimes I ramp it up, like if I find someone who really deserves it you know, but a lot of the time it’s just like — the little things add up. Management doesn’t expect much from me besides decent record-keeping, I’m not a demon after all. I don’t have that truly inventive punishment bone.”

Mark’s eyebrows shot up his forehead. “You’re not a demon?” He asked.

Johnny shook his head. “You couldn’t tell?”

Mark shook his head. “Am I supposed to be able to?”

“Depends on who you talk to — demons have it down and so do a lot of other creatures. Something about the scent of a _being_ or whatever.” Johnny waved a hand. Jaehyun was a tulpa and _the_ party trick he had was that he could tell you what sort of person was about to walk in the door a full five seconds or so before he could see them. “I figured hellhounds were in on that.”

“I mean, they might be.” He rubbed the back of his neck like he was slightly uncomfortable. “I didn’t exactly get the same information set as a lot of the rest of them.”

“Of course not,” Johnny said. “That’s my bad for assuming.”

Mark shrugged a shoulder, like he didn’t need an apology and took the bowl he was handed, full of the extra portion of meat Johnny’d asked for and about half as much rice as Johnny took for himself.

“So if you’re not a demon, what are you exactly?” Mark asked, cocking his head.

“I’m a fallen angel,” he said. “Or, well — the descendant of one.”

“But you don’t have wings,” Mark said, pointing his fork at the area above each of Johnny’s shoulders, where there were not, in fact, visible wings.

“I don’t have wings that you can _see_ ,” Johnny said with a little laugh. It was nice to be talking about something that didn’t feel combative and wasn’t sad; he didn’t _mind_ the other topics of conversation they’d had so far, but this felt decidedly less serious.

Mark snickered. “So, what, they’re like tucked into your shirt? Sucked into your back?”

Johnny shook his head. “I don’t have very many abilities — a little bit of intuition, a little bit of extra charm or charisma or whatever you want to call it, and this — the ability to glamour my wings.”

“Wild,” Mark said. He seemed impressed or curious or something else. Johnny could almost feel the question brewing in the long moment before Mark actually asked, “Can I see them?”

Johnny made a face. He didn’t want to — there was a reason they were glamoured most of the time that wasn’t just for, like, blending in. He didn’t like them. They weren’t pretty or interesting or well-kept.

“Oh, man, please?” Mark asked, leaning forward a little.

He thought for a moment. Mark put his chin in his hands and leaned forward on the counter. Mark didn’t plead or anything, they weren’t _that_ comfortable with each other yet, but he still sat there, staring at him with a half smile on his thin face. Johnny felt very seen, almost enough to make him a little self-conscious — and worn down, even without playful begging.

“Do not laugh at them,” Johnny said with a little frown and a sigh.

“Oh, I wouldn’t — I don’t think,” Mark said. His grin was sort of cheeky, but beneath that Johnny could feel something like earnest sincerity. Johnny couldn’t help but linger on what a strange combination that was.

“I’m sure you know what angel wings look like — that’s — that’s the blueprint,” Johnny said, standing and shaking out his shoulders a little. He didn’t do this very often — probably not as often as he should. He was out of practice. He rolled out his neck. “And then, part of the punishment for the fallen angels was to make their wings and all of their descendants wings non-functional. And the way they did that, was to make them sort of ragged and weird. So I — just, be prepared for that,” Johnny said.

“I’m ready, I’m ready,” Mark said, waving him off.

Johnny took a deep breath and closed his eyes and pulled the glamour off — it was a strange sort of feeling like a piece of silky fabric he couldn’t see rolling off in a fluid motion, but also came with a weird lightness in his head, like he’d let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding or like a headache had dissolved.

Mark sucked in a breath. “Holy shit!”

Johnny opened his eyes, to see Mark’s eyes blown wide — looking intently at Johnny’s wings. He supposed they were sort of impressive, ragged and shitty as they were. Each was a dark, sooty gray, a little bigger than the size of his torso all folded up the way they were, though much larger unfolded — more or less a bird’s wing, though many of his feathers were strange and lacy and broken, especially at closer inspection.

“Can I —?” Mark asked, hand already outstretched a little.

Johnny nodded, and closed his eyes to smooth his expression out as Mark did so — they were _sensitive_ unglamoured, and though he could feel that Mark was being careful in the way he traced the lines of the wings, it still felt like something between someone tickling him and a finger tracing up inside of his leg.

He took a shaky breath and let his shoulders relax a little and told himself to not make things weird.

“Does that tickle?” Mark asked, pulling his hands back.

“Not exactly,” Johnny told him. He could hear the slight strain in his voice, but he hoped Mark couldn’t.

“Not exactly?” Mark asked, from behind him. He dragged a careful hand over the top of Johnny’s left wing, feeling the way the muscle sculpted itself along the bone and feathers. Feeling the shape of it.

Johnny shook his head. “Sort of tickles, sort of doesn’t,” he said tightly. He let his head loll back slightly, not _not_ enjoying the feeling, though he knew he had to keep quiet about it.

Even if he — even if he _liked_ Mark, he wouldn’t feel right expressing that right now. It would be too strange and Mark would feel too put on the spot.

“Interesting,” he heard Mark say, as he withdrew his hands. As much as the feeling was driving Johnny a little crazy, he couldn’t say he hadn’t liked it. “They’re really cool. I wish I had something cool.”

Johnny opened his eyes to see Mark back in front of him, a little bit of red high in his cheeks. Maybe he was allergic to feathers.

“I mean, you’ve got a tail when you’re a dog, that’s not _not_ cool,” Johnny said with a little laugh, shrugging his shoulders a little to tuck his wings all the way back. “And the teeth — the teeth are definitely cool.”

Mark pulled a half smile, teeth nearly as sharp as Johnny had remembered them. “You have sharp teeth, too, though.”

Johnny shrugged a shoulder. “Yeah, sort of, but not — not quite like that, unfortunately.”

Mark turned away, to finish what was left of his dinner, but Johnny didn’t miss the way the red in his cheeks had brightened just a little. He returned to his dinner as well, but it was all he could think about.

Was he — was that a blush?

Did that mean —

“So,” Mark said, interrupting his thought process. “What do you do all day as a fallen angel who does … ”

“Contracted mischief,” Johnny finished for him.

“Yes, that.”

“Well, today I mostly stole people’s keys. You know, people who parked like assholes or who were rude to retail or food service workers. Sometimes I mix things up and do some additional emotional manipulation, but you’d be surprised how _ruined_ someone’s day feels when they lose their keys.”

“And that’s your job?” Mark asked him, eyebrows raising.

“Pretty much — I have to keep track of the when and where and how and who, and after I’ve been some place for a while I can start making more informed decisions like _oh, that lady obviously didn’t learn anything last time I interacted with her, let’s scale up the action this time_ , and sometimes I get a list of like, people to not act upon unless their behavior crosses a certain level, but yeah, it’s — I mean,” Johnny shrugged a shoulder. “It’s work.”

“Weird,” Mark said with a little laugh.

“What did you think I did all day?”

“I don’t know — like research or something? I didn’t realize your job was so …”

“Hands on?” Johnny finished for him.

“Exactly,” Mark said with a little nod and a little pleased smile.

“Somebody’s got to do it,” Johnny said.

“I don’t think that’s true,” Mark laughed.

Johnny shrugged playfully. It almost certainly wasn’t. “And what do you do all day here?”

“Well,” Mark said with a little smile. He pulled his non-injured leg up against his chest, resting his foot on the seat of the stool he sat on. “Not a lot so far, admittedly. I watched a little History channel, thinking it might teach me some things about Earth and learned that it’s mostly, like, scripted conspiracy content?”

“That does sound correct,” Johnny noted with a laugh.

“I’ve been reading a little, too. It’s been nice. I used to like to read a lot, but I haven’t — haven’t really been able to lately,” Mark said. He seemed a little embarrassed about it.

“Good,” Johnny said to affirm him gently. “I’m glad you’re getting the chance to.” He thought for a moment. “I think there’s a library a couple blocks over we could — well, you could go there yourself, but we could also go there together if you wanted. Whichever you were more comfortable with.”

“Uh, together sounds fine,” Mark said, not looking up from his food.

“Okay,” Johnny said. “I should probably start work at the normal time tomorrow, but depending on how you’re getting along with the boot, we can go after work or whenever on the day after.”

“That sounds nice,” Mark said, looking up with a soft, genuine smile.

Johnny couldn’t get over how different he seemed from the little creature he’d been when they met — how much more at ease, how resilient and strong he seemed, how — how sweet and earnest.

And maybe it was because of that that Mark was able to take a deep breath and ask, once they’d finished dinner and cleared the dishes and once they’d moved to sit on not-quite-opposite ends of the couch and started flipping through the channels while chatting about what might make a bad movie watchable, “So, when do I have to go back?”

Johnny’s eyebrows raised. “What?”

“It’s probably soon, right? I’m not supposed to be here.” He didn’t look like he enjoyed asking the question, but he looked resigned to it, like he knew it needed to be asked and was finally in a comfortable enough spot to ask.

And that — Johnny loved that and hated it in equal parts. Because he wasn’t wrong. He was _supposed_ to go back. But Johnny didn’t want him to. Not even a little bit.

It felt like — well, intentionally stepping off the edge of a pool and into the deep end, when Johnny said, “I don’t want you to.”

There was a flicker of a smile on Mark’s mouth, surprised and delighted, but not sure what it meant. “I — well, I don’t want to either, but I mean, is that a decision we can make? There are all those stories — I mean, you’ve heard them right? People who get dragged back, Johnny, I don’t —”

“No, I don’t want that for you either,” Johnny admitted.

“So, if I want to avoid that, it doesn’t seem like I have much choice,” Mark said with a sad little laugh.

“I bet — I bet I can figure something out. I’ve researched a little, though I haven’t found much that doesn’t involve potentially pissing off a god,” Johnny said with a little laugh. He heard himself — he sounded slightly manic. “There’s also, like, I’m here on business. I know Jaehyun brought his boyfriend here, well, not _here_ , but to Earth for a longer stay a few years ago, I —”

“I’m not your boyfriend, though,” Mark said. And there was something to the way he said it. Just a little bit flirty with his casualness. Just a little bit coy against his earnest expression.

“No, not ye—” he said, before realizing what he was saying. “No, you’re not, but I might —”

“What the fuck did you just start to say?” Mark interrupted.

“Nothing!” Johnny insisted.

“No, what was it? What were you saying?”

“I didn’t!”

“Were you going to say _not yet_?” Mark asked, eyebrows raised, and it was so — he seemed so far from offended, so incredulous and teasing that Johnny nodded. “You don’t even know my last name; I don’t know your last name! — Fuck, you haven’t even kissed me yet!”

“My last name’s Suh,” Johnny said, and when he leaned in, close, close, _close_ , Mark just shook his head like he couldn’t believe it and grinned before kissing him.

And it — Johnny wasn’t sure if he’d ever kissed someone with quite so many teeth or if he’d ever wanted to dive into anyone quite so badly. They kissed like they were on fire, like they’d broken down some wall on accident, like they needed kissing to breathe. _Warmth_ like Johnny hadn’t felt since he’d left Hell burned at his fingertips, in his gut, as their slightly cold noses bumped against each other.

“Well that was — Shit — unexpected,” Mark said with a manic little laugh, fingers twining in the hair at the nape of Johnny’s neck. It was so nice to be _touched_ by him, Johnny found. All that careful moving around each other and giving each other space had been such a _waste_.

“Unexpected?” Johnny asked him.

“Yes.”

“Not like. Phenomenal, exciting, wonderful?” Johnny asked him, teasing a little.

“Nah,” Mark said with a grin. “I mean, sure, maybe those things, too, but — I just couldn’t tell if you liked me or not. Like — not even like _this_ honestly, but in general. Like, as a person.”

Johnny hummed, pet a careful hand down his back. It had taken him a minute to warm up to the situation in general, but he wasn’t sure he’d ever not _liked_ Mark. “I’m sorry it came off that way — I’m not great at like. Interacting with other people,” he admitted. “Haechan will happily tell you about my previous assistants and everyone else I fuck relationships up with. I’m not sure how he puts up with me honestly. I was a little _scared_ of you for a little while there, but, well — if I was distant, it’s because I was trying to not mess your life up.

Mark shook his head before kissing Johnny again, much softer this time. And Johnny wondered if he’d ever get used to the feeling, or if it would keep taking his breath away like this.

—

“That’s a shitty reason.”

“Huh?” Johnny asked, just a little bit dazed. He pulled back, refocusing his eyes. Mark practically in his lap, lips just out of reach.

“That’s a shitty reason,” Mark said again, his expression a little annoyed, but mostly teasing. He put on a voice that did _not_ sound like Johnny but was meant to be him. “I’ve fucked things up before and I didn’t want to fuck this up,” He made a face, before finishing in his normal voice. “Bro, that’s so shitty.”

“It’s true!” Johnny protested, unable to stop himself from smiling.

“Still shitty!”

Mark was probably right, which was fine. Johnny didn’t mind him being right. He’d never been the sort of person to get all hung up about right and wrong anyway — he supposed that that was at least a _little_ bit ironic, being, at least in the broadest sense, one of Hell’s enforcers.

“I’m sorry,” Johnny said quietly.

“I know,” Mark said. And then, “I’m sorry, too.”

Johnny’s forehead scrunched up in confusion. “Wait, what do you have to be sorry about?”

A bit of red appeared high on Mark’s cheekbones and he licked his lips once before he said, “I may or may not have continued to pet your wings after realizing that, uh — well, you know.”

Johnny most certainly did know. “You little shit!”

“I said I was sorry!” Mark protested, giggling as Johnny grabbed him around the waist.

“You’re going to pay!”

“Are you going to steal my keys?” Mark asked, laughing and playfully scrambling away.

“ _And_ your wallet,” Johnny laughed, diving after him.

A message came in with that soft, rusting paper noise over the computer. Both of them ignored it.


End file.
